


The Moon & You

by businessirius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, First War with Voldemort, Friends to Lovers, Hogwarts Era, M/M, Pining Sirius Black, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/businessirius/pseuds/businessirius
Summary: "If soulmates do exist, they're not found. They're made."Or a story of settling, depending on how you look at it.Make sure you listen to Rejjie Snow's album, The Moon & You
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin/Original Male Character(s), Sirius Black/Original Character(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	1. INTRO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome to my new story!!
> 
> The main narrative takes place in December '79, and is interrupted by vivid flashbacks that tell their story up until that point, from Sirius' point of view (the flashbacks start with the lyrics, in italic and between double bars), kind of like the movie the notebook!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy it :))

Sirius is woken up by his need to piss, and in those sunrise-dizzy seconds of half consciousness his mind drifts to Remus, his crooked smile and the almost-dimple on his left cheek. Then, as he blinks himself awake, heartache strikes him as a kick to the stomach.

Sometimes it happens – he is no stranger to yearning, nor anxiety, and Remus is his waking thought since he is sixteen – but that’s not quite what it is. He mutters it to himself as he pours coffee in his mug, his hands shaking, “Something’s wrong”

He plans on saying it to James and Lily as he joins them on the living room, but when Lily beams at him, a book on her hands and her feet propped up in James’ lap, he only manages a good morning and a tight smile.

Sometimes he feels like a guest in his own house.

James hands him the newspaper with the crossword half done and he sinks in the couch, his stomach sinking as he finishes it. If James notices how his hands tremble, he doesn’t say anything.

“Guys, listen to this little poem” Lily says, softly, running a hand through her hair and clearing her throat “I’m going to translate as good as I can”

_In vain I look for the good I was denied_  
_The flowers of gardens inherited by others_  
_How will they do anything other than perfume for afar_  
_My desire of having them?_

“Pretty, right?” she asks, and James nods, and Sirius sobs, hiding his face.

Sirius never cries in public, not even when Gideon died last month and everyone who were the headquarters cried, so it’s hard to know what to do. James puts a sympathetic hand on his knee, and Lily just stares, unsure if she should feel responsible.

“Did I-” she starts, but Sirius interrupts her.

“When was the last time you’ve seen Remus?”

He misses James’ little frown, face still hidden. James is understanding, he himself pinned over Lily for almost two years, but shit, he got somewhere, didn’t he? Sometimes Sirius feels James is just desperate for him to get the fuck over their best friend.

“Like, a week and a half ago, he came by mine to borrow a book on coercion spells that we were going over at Hogwarts. I had snuck it out the library”

Sirius counts twelve days since that morning in the headquarters. He wants to ask how many days exactly are in a week and a half, but James’ hand on his knee prevents him.

“Force of nature, our Moony” James squeezes slightly “He comes, and then he goes, don’t worry too much”

That he does, Sirius shrugs. Sometimes he sleeps over for three straight weeks, until James playfully asks for his rent quota, even though his girlfriend basically lives there too, and he self-consciously retreats, and sometimes Sirius doesn’t hear from him for another three weeks. But he doesn’t cry for him at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, not until today, at least.

“I reckon he is on Dumbledore business” Lily says surely, and then, not so surely “I don’t think he would, uh, go. After, well, you know”

Sirius has to bite down an animalistic growl. So, a week and a half are less than twelve days, and Remus was too busy to say anything to him, but not to go and tell Lily.

“Well, I don’t know?” James alarmed voice, always in the middle of everything, unable to comprehend how his best friend and his girlfriend knew something he didn’t, as he grips Sirius’ knee “What happened?”

Lily stays rather quiet for someone who just ran her mouth, so it falls on Sirius really, and as he says it, he shivers with the weight of it.

“He kissed me” he says as he looks up, in time to catch James’ expression go from shock to excitement to worry.

“What?! In what context? Like, what lead up to it? For how long? What happened afterwards? Why didn’t you tell me? How-”

“James, come on” Lily shushes him “It’s not really a surprise, is it? They’ve been dancing around each other for months”

James twists his mouth. Months? He knows better, he has been watching Sirius tripping over his own feet for years now.

Sirius lets his head fall back, and sighs. He can trace it back to the exact day.

_// sunny days are cold and sticky, orange lemonade,_  
_baby boy, my pride and joy, left roses by your face //_

Sirius was expecting to be made Quidditch captain the following year, after Aster graduated – while it was rare for fifth years to be made captains, he had worked relentlessly for it, and even James, arguably a better player, recognized his game strategy was impeccable. ‘You have to acknowledge the other players’ strengths and weaknesses and use it in favor of the team’, Aster had told him, and from that point on he had focused on the way his teammates played, making little observations and useful suggestions to Aster, who took him under her wing and had allowed him to lead a couple of practices.

That was until they played against Slytherin and were winning with a good margin when Catherine Malfoy hexed Sirius – outraged, he hexed her back and she passed out. McGonagall banned him from playing until Christmas, even though he begged her not to and gave a hundred of terrible detention suggestions; obviously, she refused to back down.

Aster suggested that Peter, who knew the way Sirius moved in the field by heart, joined the team, and practices with the new beater were scheduled to take place three times a week, much to Sirius dismay – he would lose a whole lot of progress, and the chances of becoming captain next year dimmed considerably.

So, he decided to watch the practices, in order to deeply understand everyone’s thought process while they were playing, paying especial attention to his own moves, mirrored by Peter, to find flaws from an outside perspective.

“Maybe watching every single practice isn’t the best way to get over your punishment, Padfoot” James had pointed out the third time around.

“I just want to be supportive” Sirius had said, smiling when James turned to look at him. He sensed Remus looking up from his homework to stare at them and smiled at him as well. He smiled back.

On the following Friday, before practice, Remus followed them to the field.

“I’m being supportive. And keeping you company” he clarified when Sirius arched a curious eyebrow in his direction.

They sat next to each other on the bleachers and stayed in silence for a while, until Remus cleared his throat.

Sirius braced himself – he was certainly going to pick on a little fight, as nothing seemed more entertaining to Remus than squabbling. Don’t get him wrong, Sirius loved a good quarrel, and their mutual stubbornness was the foundation of their friendship: Sirius came to school from home with a consuming desire to just talk back, and Remus longed for the moment he could drop his restrained-polite-pretense and complain fervently about something – finally, both of them simply relished on having the last word. Neither James nor Peter had the drive, or the argumentative skills, so Sirius and Remus kept it all just for each other, to the point where they couldn’t really have a chat without bickering.

Not only was it entertaining, but it assured Sirius that he could be annoying and still appreciated, which was a most-valuable reassurance, at times like this. However, he had a plan for these benched-practices, and he didn’t really feel up for debating.

“Have I ever told you about the first time me and my mother went to Diagonally?” Remus asked instead, and Sirius shook his head, not really looking at him until he was halfway-through the story and crying with laughter when he finished.

“Swear it happened!” Sirius demanded, squeaking and wiping his eyes.

“I swear!” Remus laughed “We nearly died of embarrassment on the spot, and laughed for four hours straight when we arrived at home”

The same thing happened every practice since then: Remus would sit next to Sirius and tell him stories about his life at home, or his heritage, or even something he had read, and Sirius would listen and laugh, or just smile.

He found it fascinating – he’d always known that Remus was smart (he always figured an alternate way to do a spell if someone couldn’t master it the standard way), and funny (he had an unmatched sarcasm and a wicked sense of humor), but this was different. This wasn’t subtle intelligence or discreet wit he let on through clever remarks, this was blatant charisma, this was dazzling allure in the form of storytelling. It felt like magic, a type of magic that couldn’t be explained through textbooks.

It got to the point where Sirius anticipated the Quidditch’s practices more than he ever did before, and he couldn’t quite place his finger on why (sure it was interesting, but he loved to play), until that day, one of those sunny days after a full week of rain, when everything seems brighter than it was before, no hint of wind as well, so Sirius felt sticky with sweat even though he was sat still.

Remus had shared his muggle mother’s Christmas traditions, and asked Sirius about Christmas at his house – Sirius shrugged, “Not awful, but used to be better, back when Andromeda was invited”, he muttered.

Remus sipped his orange lemonade and offered him a bit. Sirius accepted and stared at Remus while he lifted his fringe, plastered with sweat, off this forehead, scratching the back of his head a bit, his scarred forearm exposed.

“I feel like, if you were a drink, you’d be orange lemonade” he said, turning to Sirius and smiling; Sirius felt a warmth below his stomach and then it _hit_ him.

Remus was _handsome_. And his eagerness regarding these afternoons could be explained through the simple fact that he was _attracted_.

He went cold, his heart pounding, and Remus’ expression shifted.

“Hm, maybe that was a bit weird”

“No, no, it was funny. You’d be hot chocolate, but it goes without saying” Sirius said, and Remus smiled again, the golden spring sun highlighting his freckles and the scar on his cheekbone. Sirius looked away, out of breath, and bit down the tip of his tongue, as if he had just sipped burning hot chocolate.


	2. UNBORN

James figures a walk to the park would cheer Sirius up, but the dog craves the wolf as much as Sirius does. He forces himself to play around for a bit, but the absence of his mate makes him whine – he can’t even smell where he is.

When they get home and Sirius turns back, he feels even more worried.

“The full was two days ago, he should be home by now” he says to James and Lily, and by home he means with them “I’m not being melodramatic, I know something’s off. The dog knows it too”

Lily writes to Dumbledore, but it doesn’t properly soothe Sirius – the Old Man sends Moony to die in recognizance missions in the middle of nowhere since he was eighteen, why would he care? – and then she offers to paint his nails.

He accedes and as she does so, James braids his hair. He usually relishes in being pampered, but this time he is painfully aware that they’re distracting him, keeping him entertained so he doesn’t think about Remus hurting. With time, he has become a professional in burying thoughts and feelings, especially if they regard his brown-haired friend; he knows how to keep himself distracted enough to stay afloat, but now it’s like he is drowning in his mind, and sitting around, waiting – waiting for what? – is only making it worse.

“I still feel fucking terrible” he says, and Lily looks at James instead of looking at him, slightly pursing her lips “I’ve got some research to work on, so I’m going to the Headquarters for a bit”

He knows he won’t get much done, but his flat’s walls are closing in on him and if he’s just going to be useless, he better get exhausted while he’s at it.

“We’ll come with” James offers, reaching for Sirius’ shoulder and squeezing it gently, a half-smile on the left side of his face “Who knows if he’s there, eh?”

He isn’t, though that bit was obvious. While James comforts an overwhelmed Benjy Fenwick, who is eager to vent to however will listen, Sirius and Lily launch themselves into fruitless research on how to detect traces of Imperio, or a polyjuiced version of someone. They don’t particularly favor Mary’s theory that _there-is-someone-passing-information-to-the-other-side_ , but unfortunate coincidences keep following unfortunate coincidences, and in case she’s right, both Sirius and Lily hope that whoever that someone is isn’t doing it willingly.

Sirius’ heart isn’t really in it (he can stop glancing at the couch and thinking about their legs tangled, just twelve days ago), so he doesn’t quite share Lily’s frustration when they hit the fifth dead-end in a row. He suggests a cigarette to calm her down, and she says she won’t smoke but joins him outside anyway.

“I’m so fucking tired of swimming in circles” she exhales, rubbing her arm for warmth in the cold winter night “I don’t recall anytime, not even once, that I researched and figured out something actually relevant, that could be used in practical terms”

Sirius sighs, as he always does when he is forced to partake in the routine of moaning and whining that seemed to always take place in the complaining-porch in front of the headquarters.

“Maybe we just need a set of fresh eyes to look at what we got. At this point, we wouldn’t get the answer we’re looking for even if it was written in bright, gold, capital letters”

Lily laughs despite herself and then says, “Always lovely when the outside perspective just tells you everything you gathered is already well-known”

Sirius tilts his head, flicks the ash off, “Bound to happen when a brilliant wizard who has almost one-hundred years old of vain research gathers a bunch of high-schoolers to do with for him”

“We should bet on who’s going to be the first person to tell him to fuck off, one of these days” she says, almost smiling.

“My money’s on McKinnon”

Lily nods, “Probably written on a letter”

“On that beautiful calligraphy”

“If you know, you know”

He finishes his cigarette in silence, and Sirius speaks before he can stop himself.

“What did he say to you when he told you about what happened? Like, what did he want out of it?”

Lily looks up at him, the side of her mouth twisted, eyes squinted “Come on, Black”

Sirius doesn’t look away, doesn’t give up, silently begs for a little of classified information.

“I’m not speaking for him. You know he likes you, but you also know you can be a handful, sometimes”

It makes Sirius stomach drop and his throat tighten, and he wishes he hadn’t asked at all. When they make their way back inside, Marlene calls out for him, and Lily follows suit.

“Evening, Black. Now please, tell me: what were you tripping on when you’ve managed this, uh, attempt, at location spells?”

“It works” he says defensively “I’ve tried it on James, I figured he was at the seafood shack”

“Anyone could figure that out without any magic, man”

Sirius bites his lower lip and sways on the balls of his feet. He had put in hours and hours on that spell, and he had seen James where he was with an unbelievable clarity. It only worked out once, but it did work, so fuck whatever McKinnon thought.

“Alright then” he concedes “what do you suggest?”

“Glad you ask” she smiles too suddenly to mean it and ties her hair up “Bones and Meadows and I developed this sort of, uh, _database_ , with the wands of the members of the Order. Includes their location, therefore, the location of their owner”

Sirius’ face twists in a frown. It seems like the worst idea possible: wands get lost, get stolen, and what can happen if the wrong person gets their hands on such database, what’s the use of restricting location-magic to Order members?

He shares a knowing look with Lily.

“Do Lupin’s, then” she purses her lips and Sirius closes his eyes.

To hell with rational intentions, he reasons. Since when have distractions worked, when it came to Remus?

_// fucking till the moon shines on my tongue //_

In the following weeks, Sirius did exactly what a 15-year-old would do if they found out that they had it for their best friend of the same gender: he tried to pass it onto the next person.

The first attempt was Savannah Cullen, an Hufflepuff who had sent him a box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day. He lied through his teeth about having spent the previous months trying to find out who had sent him the chocolates and wishing upon the mysterious girl every time he ate one, when the truth was that the four of them had devoured the candy in two days. They went for a walk and kissed behind the greenhouse – it was Sirius’ first time and he was really careful and gentle. She smiled when he stepped away and he kissed her again; their noses bumped and he liked it a lot, and couldn’t help but think that if he were to kiss Remus, their noses would certainly bump, and brush throughout the whole thing.

It lasted almost two weeks: Savannah was pretty and soft-spoken, and they went for walks all the time, even held hands in the hallway once or twice – that is, until she told him that they weren’t compatible, astrologically speaking, and should stop wasting each other’s time.

The next one was Anna Faye, a Ravenclaw to whom he was paired with on Potions – after a couple weeks of flirting, she asked for help after class and jumped on him as soon as the door closed. She was experienced, or maybe just over-confident, and Sirius followed her lead every time they had their little tutoring sessions. Sometimes she would try and talk about her friends and her family, but Sirius would get bothered after five minutes and shut her up with a kiss – she never complained and eagerly kissed him back, though. Once, she slid her hand under his shirt, cold fingers with long nails curled under his ribcage, but he thought of long, calloused, warm fingers with bitten nails instead. He felt guilty that time around, a tight sensation on his stomach, and took off her shirt to shake the feeling off, leaving a trail of kisses from her neck to her bellybutton. She was beautifully built, and incredibly smart, with an outstanding talent for Potions, which made James tease him relentless about the tutoring.

However, Sirius didn’t really feel sad when she broke things off a couple days after, claiming that she was getting back with her ex-boyfriend, not sparing Sirius of an it’s-not-you-it’s-me-speech.

Finally, there was Sylvia Marvin, a year older, Gryffindor’s seeker, the girl Sirius would say was the prettiest in school, whenever asked. After a few long glances during meals in the Great Hall and warm nights in the Common Room, she sat next to him on the birthday party of a seventh-year Gryffindor, said sweet nothings in his ear and they made out in front of everyone. She was extraordinarily funny, and her views on international Quidditch matched his, so they actually established a connection, spending time together besides the late nights on the Astronomy tower.

Still, the time spent on the Quidditch benches with Remus was his favourite. He seemed unbothered with his rendezvous, while James was over-excited and Peter quite annoyed, and unaware of his true feelings, so he kept telling stories of his hometown as if nothing had changed. Probably it hadn’t, for him.

He was mid-telling what happened one time his mother cut the light of the whole neighborhood while trying to fix their electrical panel (he had spent at least 20 minutes explaining electricity to Sirius), when Sylvia flew her way to the benches.

“Aster gave us five” she sighed, smiling, and Remus offered her his water flask “Thank you, angel”

“You’re killing it up there” Sirius complimented, even though he hadn’t been watching her.

“With such a high caliber audience” she kept smiling, wiping her mouth and giving the water back to Remus “I might have drunk almost all of it”

“That’s alright” he smiled back.

“Were you the one who taught Jennie that jinx?” she sat on Sirius lap, still talking to Remus.

“The one that corrects spelling mistakes?”

“Precisely!” she grinned widely, and Remus grinned back, and it didn’t quiet sit right with Sirius. He knew it was unfair, and selfish, but he wanted him to belittle her.

“Yes, I can teach you, it’s quite simple”

“Oh, please!”

He watched attentively while he pronounced this quite useless spell (who can’t spell at fifteen, for fuck’s sake), moving his wand oh-so-slightly, the bones shifting under his wrist, the firm grip of his fingers, a few times until Sylvia got it right. By the time they finished, he was aroused.

Sylvia noticed – of course she did, she was sat on top of him – and looked at him, eyebrows raised, biting back a smile.

“Can’t help it, can I?” he grunted, waving at her, and she giggled, leaning to kiss him. Remus looked away, fumbling with his bag.

“Marvin!” Aster called her “I doubt the snitch is down Black’s throat”

“I’ll handle that later” she smiled mischievously, getting on her broom.

“See you, Syl” Sirius cocked his head, and she flew away.

He lay down on the benches, the sun on his face, eyes closed, thinking about Filch and Slughorn to make it go away.

“How do you do it?” Remus asked after a while.

“Do what?”

“Oh, you know. The, uh, messing around”

“I don’t really make the first move”

“Well, considered the first move made. By, uh, the other part. How do you show them you’re interested?”

Sirius sat up, squinting his eyes and crossing his legs.

“Who are we talking about?”

“I’d rather not say”

Sirius frowned, but gave his input still. He had to keep it up.

“Well, depends on how strong such move was. See, I was sure that Savannah fancied me, she sent me those chocolates, so I invited her over for a walk, the more obvious the better. With Anna I only suspected, so we found a way to spend time alone, the tutoring, and it happened – you could use some help on Transfiguration, I reckon”

Remus shoved him, but he was smiling.

“And with Syl, I had no idea. So, I just stared at her. Broadly. And after so much snogging between the eyes, well, we-”

“Yeah, I know, I was there” he said, but it wasn’t bitter “so going for a walk or studying together or just staring, that’s your advice?”

Sirius shrugged. It had nuances, of course, but he wouldn’t want to discuss it.

“Maybe it works for you because you’re charismatic” Remus sighed, and it crossed Sirius mind for a second.

They could be talking about _him_. If Remus thought he was charismatic, he could have easily caught a sign and label it a ‘first move’. They had chemistry, it was clear, but it could be hard to show interest on such a platonic relationship. He had to bite back a smile.

“You’re charismatic too, Moony”

Remus looked down and smiled, and Sirius’ heart missed a beat.

He wasn’t able to think about anything else the following days – every look, every word spoken, the morning they brushed hands during breakfast – it all seemed like a world of possibilities.

It was still on his mind when he went to meet Sylvia on the Astronomy Tower, three days before the end of the year. She kissed him passionately, and he thought about Remus inviting him for a walk and kissing him as he was being kissed, he kissed her neck and thought about being alone with Remus on the library and kissing his neck instead, she moaned in his hear and he imagined a deeper, huskier voice, moaning as well. And he was too blind with pleasure to understand how wrong it was.

“You’re so hot” she whispered, feeling him up “And so hard”

And as she drew her hand down his trousers and made him finish, he thought about Remus’ eyes looking at him, his mouth chewing on a pencil, his hands where hers were, words of longing being whispered in his ear, a hushed confession.

She casted a cleaning spell after and ran her hand through his hair.

“First time a girl did it to you?” Sirius nodded “It was my first time as well. Was it good?”

“Bloody amazing” he sighed, leaning to kiss her before getting up.

“Stay just a bit more?” she pleaded, and Sirius ought to repay the favor, but now that the ecstasy was running down, he felt pretty terrible about having thought profoundly of his friend throughout the whole thing.

“It’s getting really late Syl” he caressed her cheek “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble”

“Alright” she smiled, getting up, and they left hand-in-hand.

They kissed goodbye in the Common Room, and Sirius, who despised Summer holidays, was thankful that they’re getting a few miles of distance between them for a few months. As he climbed up the stairs to the dormitory, he noticed James and Peter playing chess. He frowned – he really didn’t want alone time with Remus, now.

When he opened the door, he saw Remus checking himself up in the mirror.

“Have you got the cloak?” he asked as he glanced at Sirius, turning back to the mirror to fix his naturally messy hair.

Sirius hummed in denial, sitting on his bed.

“Where are you going?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

“Do I look good?” Remus asked instead.

“I guess” Sirius shrugged, but it was an understatement “Where are-”

“A little appointment” Remus smiled mischievously, and Sirius felt nauseous “Apparently your advice wasn’t as shit as it seemed. Shame it’s so late in the year…”

He kept quiet, and Remus insisted, still staring at the mirror “Do you know here the cloak is?”

“Check under James’ pillow” he suggested, feeling sick.

Remus did as he told him, carefully covering himself with the invisibility cloak.

“Thank you!” he said from beneath it, and opened the dorm door, not bothering with closing it.

Sirius had to get up in order to do so, pressing his back against it and sinking down, his breath short and his blood boiling, images of Remus being touched by a girl making him dizzy with anger.

“Fuck’s sake” he cursed, realizing that whatever he had been doing for the past few weeks, he had been doing it wrong.


	3. FASHION WEEK

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, how are you??
> 
> there is going to be some french in here which is totally google translate, but honestly so is some of this english and the ship sails anyway

Marlene’s database looked like a Pensieve. Only took her about four minutes to come up with an address.

“His mother’s home” Sirius mutters, not feeling much better.

“Sweet” Lily says, more impressed or relieved Sirius couldn’t say, and engages with Marlene on a throughout discussion about its implications, weaknesses and strengths.

He drifts off to James, taps his shoulder, says in a quiet exhale, “Moony’s at his home”

“Want to go and check up on him?” James asks after a beat, raising his eyebrow as he looks into Sirius’ eager eyes.

Sirius does, but shrugs “A little creepy, no?”

“Not at all. I’ll tell Lily and we’re off”

They Apparate to an empty house, Remus’ wand inside the pocket of his overcoat, hang behind the door.

“Maybe he just went into town to buy something?” James offers and Sirius wonders if even he believes in it. They wait around anyway.

Remus’ living room seems quite empty, especially compared to their small, messy one. A worn-out couch, a stained rug, a little television over a desk missing a drawer, a single shelf with not enough books to be filled. No color-scheme, which really upsets Sirius, and no sign of Remus’ presence.

Sirius paces for an hour. Self-consciousness has joined worry – what is he doing? Does it look as ridiculous as it feels? He feels like he is fifteen again, his heart beating out his chest as he lays on his bed, whispering Remus’ name like a secret, sometimes a couple feet away from him, protected by a silencing charm but wanting to be heard, somehow.

The clock marks half past eleven when they hear a little squeal. Sirius is chain-smoking by the window and almost chokes, his heart at the bottom of his throat. James is shuffling through Remus’ mother old records and shrugs it off.

“Probably a rat on the roof, Padfoot”

He follows him upstairs regardless, and they’re met with inconsolable nothingness.

Sirius really wants to step into Remus’ room, go through his stuff, as invasive and childish as that sounds. He has never been there, and he can’t help but wonder how it’s like – he knows how Remus occupies his space in a shared dorm, in a friend’s living room, and he itches to know how he does it in his own empty home.

James seems to read his mind and leads the way. Remus’ room, smaller than what Sirius’ had foreseen, feels warmer, one of the walls is painted orange and the quilt on his single bed has also orange floral motives, and his bed and his secretary and his bookshelf, overflowing, are made of dark wood. On his bedside table, sits his diary.

“Come look” James says as he sits on the bed, a small box open on his lap.

Sirius sits next to him, forcing his legs to keep steady, and flips through the photographs and little notes – James and Lily pinching Remus’ cheeks, taken by Sirius in seventh year, when everyone but James and Lily knew James and Lily were dating, Peter, James and Sirius all covered in chocolate cake, taken by Remus on Peter’s birthday, a note on James’ handwriting saying _Sirius says we need the frog legs by tonight, come up with an idea moonybrains xx,_ the four of them in Diagonally, taken by Euphemia and sent to Hope with the inscription _He’s in good hands_ on the back, Sirius and Remus curled up on each other on the common room’s couch (he didn’t know this photograph existed, but they look about sixteen and Sirius suspects James took it), a note in Sirius’ handwriting saying _Got a massive headache, look at me and flash me your brightest smile please_ , Remus and Peter in the midst of N.E.W.T’s revision, flipping the middle finger to the camera, taken by Sirius, and then, finally, a note in a handwriting he doesn’t recognize, saying _hey handsome, can’t stop thinking about giving you head, meet me in the greenhouse before dinner_.

Sirius laughs despite himself and is struck by the possibility that Remus could be, at that exact moment, with someone else. Twelve days is too long, and it would be just is luck, wouldn’t it, worried sick at his friend’s childhood home while he was fucking someone else senseless.

All he did during those twelve days was over-indulge himself in their six-minute kiss, playing out scenarios of a committed relationship and moving in together and shared pets when Remus had given him no indication whatsoever that what was what he wanted. That was also what he had done during all their years of shared blood and birthdays, envision, read too much into things, project, fool himself and make a fool out of himself. What did he look like at that moment, he wondered, sitting on his friend’s single bed, waiting out for him after a day agonizing over his absence? Claiming love out of a little slip after years of constant slipping away, still waiting for something that was probably never going to be?

“Ten reasons why we love Remus Lupin, signed only by Sirius Black despite-”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here”

James raises an eyebrow at him, and then glances at the piece of paper he’s holding.

“Padfoot, that’s like, years old. Don’t be paranoid”

“Paranoia is apparating to his empty house and waiting over an hour for him. He’s not coming. Let’s go”

James tosses an arm over his shoulder and Sirius leans in. As his breath loses its constant rhythm, he vows to himself not to cry at the thought of an anonymous, outdated blowjob. Did his desperate yearning evolve into paranoia over a non-existent menace? The thought makes him feel even more pathetic, and therefore anxious, ergo, even more pathetic.

“All I do is wait on him” he mumbles “like a stupid, stupid dog”

“I understand that it feels like that now. But that’s not all there is. You’re his friend, you know, and an amazing one at that. Rather a loyal, very-loved dog, alright?”

“I just feel so clueless, so fucking helpless. Like I didn’t learn a single thing since that night when I told you. Do you remember it?”

He can feel James nodding.

_// comme des garçons, playing with yourself_  
_fashion week again, bad for ya health //_

Sirius started the fifth year with a new sense of purpose: he was going to become Quidditch captain, and he was going to come out to his friends.

He had had a summer fling, with Frederic, a guy, a French guy – the Belleroses, friends of the family, came to spend a fortnight on the Blacks’ summer house, to put some businesses in order. In the meantime, Sirius and Regulus were to be nice to Frederic Bellerose, the most gorgeous guy Sirius had ever put his eyes on, shiny, long blond hair, piercing green eyes, perfect facial bone structure, tall and broad body.

He was also a hell of a Quidditch player, a beater just like Sirius, and they had their fair share of fun aiming bludgers at Regulus and complementing each other moves. Once, at sunset, when they were tiding everything up, just the two of them, Frederic grabbed his arm.

“I would like to kiss you” he said with a French accent, and Sirius could’ve melted on the spot “May I?”

“Oui, oui” Sirius smiled, and was kissed like he had never been before.

Since then, they spent their days hiding from Regulus to make out, for hours at a time, and it was so good it made him forget Remus for a while. On their last night together, Sirius even put his hand down Frederic’s trousers, smoothly just like Sylvia had done, and kissed him as he melted in his hands.

“Do your friends know?” Sirius asked afterwards, quietly.

“Oui, some of them” Frederic replied, grabbing Sirius’ hand “It took me a little while to tell them, but I think it’s important to, uh, comme on dit? Vivre votre verité”

“Live your truth?” Sirius managed, and Frederic smiled.

“Oui, I think so”

“Oui, oui” Sirius smiled, and leaned down to kiss him one last time.

Just like that, it had become something bigger than Remus and unrequited yearning, it was something about himself now, something that could be good sometimes, and he was determined to own up to it. Maybe Remus had only been sort of an awakening, and things would be easier that year, he thought. And he was really optimistic about Quidditch.

The higher the expectations, the harder the fall, that’s what they say. James had been named captain, and Remus was not only more handsome (he had grown a couple inches, and a slight stubble, and his skin was tanned and his shoulders broader, and he seemed radiant to be back) but also distant – Sirius, James and Peter, who were mastering the Animagus potion after Peter made a significantly relevant discovery on the matter during the summer, didn’t even have to try to keep Remus at a distance, since he was always busy.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when he came into the dorm one night, a ghost of a smile still on his lips, and said as he turned to them.

“I’ve got something to tell you”

“So do we!” Peter exclaimed. They had successfully turned four times already and had been waiting for a chance to tell Remus, who had been coming in late to the dorm every night for the past week.

“I want to go first” Remus declared, breathed in and said calmly “I’m going out with Andrew Novogratz, the Ravenclaw”

“You’re what?!” Sirius screeched, feeling his heart shrink.

Remus looked at him, hurt, but then blinked and put his hands on his waist.

“Dating” he said defiantly, jaw locked, chest puffed “A boy”

Sirius exhaled loudly and stared at his friend in shock. It felt as if the walls were closing in on them, and it was getting harder to breath. Remus hardened his look.

“Do you have a problem with it?” he insisted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Sirius felt as if his heart could burst out of his chest. He had never liked him so much, he figured; Remus looked so grown there, gorgeous in the candlelight, sure of himself, merely a shadow of the scared little boy who was confronted about being a werewolf in that exact position, ready to pick up a fight with him over a boy that he was messing with – no, he that was dating, so he must really like him – proud and fierce and brave, all of it in front of him and all of it belonging to someone else.

“He doesn’t” Peter said in his turn, and then, with a know-it-all-stance, “You know homophobia is taught, Moony. He will get used to it”

Remus scoffed, and sat on his bed.

Sirius wanted to scream that he was there, and punch Peter for speaking for him, and let them know that he had spent the only good part of his summer kissing a boy, and punch Remus for having spent his thinking about it as well, and punch Andrew Novogratz, just for existing. He looked at James in despair, and something passed between them.

“Well, it’s our turn now” James stated, getting up and opening up his arms, theatrically “Consider your full moons officially improved”

With a wave of his hand he turned into a stag, and then it was Sirius turn – Peter took a little longer, but still managed.

As a dog, his eyesight was pretty shit, but all his other senses improved greatly. He could hear three heartbeats around him, and he could smell it: lust, coming from the human, another scent mixed up with his, sex and desire. He whined.

He saw the stag turn back, and the rat followed suit. He scratched his hear before turning back.

“What the fuck?” Remus, said, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

“We’re Animagus!” James said excitedly.

“What the fuck?” Remus insisted, astonished.

“Now we can keep you company during the full moons!” Peter said, laughing.

“What the fuck?”

“Now, Andrew got your tongue? Do you have anything else you’re able to say?” Sirius managed, wanting to let some of it out, wanting a reaction out of Remus.

He got it – Remus pushed his hair back in frustration and spoke directly to Sirius.

“Fuck off. Are you aware of how dangerous it is? I could hurt you. If anyone finds out, you will be expelled-”

“So will you, werewolf”

Remus widened his eyes in disbelief, and Sirius felt a little amusement, in the midst of all heartbreak.

“I know, and I’m permanently afraid of it, I don’t know why you’d ever voluntarily put ourselves in this position-”

“It really takes a complete bitch in order to bitch about his friends taking a huge risk just to help-”

“Apparently it takes someone with functional brain cells to understand that this madness will get us all expelled!”

“We won’t be caught, unless you go and tell on us-”

“Jesus, Sirius, just fuck off, will you?”

“No, you can fuck off! We’ve researched the shit out of this just for you to be an ungrateful little twat-”

“Alright, alright, let’s take it easy” James intervened, shutting Sirius up, who closed the curtains of his bed in protest, hugging his pillow for some comfort. Remus was dating. A boy.

From his hiding place, he could hear James explain to Remus that they would arrive after Pomfrey left, and leave before Pomfrey arrived, and that it was safe, and that werewolves didn’t hurt animals, and that they were conscious of all the implications and still decided to do it.

“I don’t know what to say” Remus muttered.

“A ‘thank you’ would be nice” Peter suggested, and the three boys laughed. Sirius’ urge to punch Peter dissipated.

“Thank you. I can’t believe it. You’re the best”

“It was Sirius’ idea” James pointed out “Back in third year”

“I will apologize tomorrow. If he doesn’t mind speaking to me” he muttered, sounding hurt. Or maybe it was just Sirius’ imagination.

“He won’t” James assured, and they exchanged goodnights before they turned off the light and went to their own beds.

How much did Andrew Novogratz know, Sirius wondered in the dark. Did he know about the lycanthropy? Did he know about Remus’ mannerisms, how he rubbed his index finger against his thumbnail when he was thinking, and bit the inside of his cheek when he was nervous? Did he know about that time his mother had cut off the electricity of the whole neighborhood? Did he know that Remus always slept with two pillows so he could hug one through the night since he became too grown to climb up Sirius’ bed? Did he know that he was the mastermind behind their latest prank, that left all the Slytherins hiccupping bubbles for two days?

In fact – did he know things about Remus that Sirius didn’t? Had Andrew Novogratz figured him out, in a different way? He probably had, they were boyfriends, and thinking about him getting to know Remus was far worse than thinking about him kissing Remus.

“Padfoot?” James tugged at his curtains, interrupting that dangerous chain of thought “I’m coming in”

Sirius made room for James and sat up, facing him. James casted a Silencing Charm, followed by a Lumos.

“What was that about?” James started, confused “I doubt any negative remarks your parents may have said about, you know, queer people, have stuck with you”

Sirius shifted uncomfortably, and James kept going.

“And we had anticipated that he would be freaked out when we showed him the animagis”

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, and nothing came out. Telling him he was also queer wouldn’t solve the situation at hand.

“We don’t have to talk about it, if there’s anything going on that you don’t want to discuss”

“I don’t want to discuss it, but I will tell you” he wished he could say he wanted to confess for the sake of honesty, to live his truth and such, but he really just wanted to share the burden “I think I fancy him”

James nodded, more to himself than to Sirius, and swallowed.

“Do you want me to rub your back?”

“God, yes” Sirius said, laying facedown, and falling asleep to James’ gentle touch, the claws of rejection and jealousy loosening their grip on him.


	4. AFRICAN DRAGON

“Try out the location spell, your way?” James suggests, rubbing Sirius’ back.

“What if he’s fine?” Sirius scoffs, meaning to ask what if he was sleeping over in someone else’s bed.

“What if he’s not?”

Sirius straightens his back, feeling terror in his guts, just as he did when he woke up. He hums and waves his hand, signaling James to leave him on his own.

Sat crossed-legged on Remus bed, eyes closed, Sirius abstracts himself of where he is, with who, and why. He clears his head of any thoughts, any worries, exhales to let his anxiety and terror go, tries to picture an enormous, empty desert in his mind.

He starts to picture how Remus looks, uneven eyebrows, crooked nose cut by a scar, mouth in permanent motion, worrying his lips when he’s quiet, the fine lines of his neck, shoulders and back, bony elbows and bony knees, long, slender fingers, the scars on the back of his hands, on his chest, golden curls that fall over his eyes.

Then, Sirius focus on the sound of his voice, soft and deep and honey-sweet, the way he rolls the r when he says his name, and his laughter, sudden and strident and a little high-pitched, and the way he mumbles tunes when he’s tidying up. Finally, his smell, the heat of lit cigarettes and a cake in the oven, the freshness of oranges and parchment and moondust.

 _“Inveniet Remus Lupin”_ he says, pointing his wand to his chest _“Producat illum in domum suam”_

He lets himself go, can almost feel the weight of a body next to his, the warmth of a hand on the crook of his elbow, the ghost of lips over his. And then, suddenly, his body hunches forward, as he is hit with visions of Remus in the woods, alone, trembling and wringing, calling out for his mother. He feels hollowed out.

“James, Prongs!” he calls out, almost panting, eyes wide open.

“Padfoot? Are you alright?” James blurts into the room, holding his glasses in his hands.

“Bring me a map, James, you have to”

“Map of what?”

“I don’t know man, Britain!”

James takes an eternity, but ends up bringing a dusty, rolled up Europe map, and straightens it with a spell.

“What now?”

Sirius runs over the map with the tip of his wand, but he can’t really focus, his mind feels slow, and sluggish, and detached. He tries to breath in and breath out, but what comes out is a sob.

“Padfoot, what’s going on? You’re panicking”

“I’ve seen him, he’s hurting, I’ve got no idea where”

James frowns, crossing his arms and worrying his bottom lip while he thinks.

“Stun me” Sirius asks. His magic always works better when he’s on the defensive.

“Huh?”

“Just, I- I need to focus. Please, mate”

James, confused but desperate, does. When Sirius recovers from a mild Stupefy, he can see Remus whimpering and shaking, clearly. With his eyes closed, he runs his wand over the map, again, and again, slower the third time around.

 _“Inveniet, inveniet, inveniet, inveniet”_ he mumbles under his breath, and then, his wand burns out a little, well-defined point in northern Wales.

He sobs again. It is like ripping off an annoying band-aid, only to find a bleeding, raw wound underneath it. It reminds Sirius of Remus’ 16th birthday.

_//_

James had arranged with the Head Boy to have a party in the Common room until 2 a.m. He also got a shit ton of alcohol.

Sirius and James were sprawled on the sofa, entertaining a crowd with the funniest drunkest dialogue possible, verbally slaughtering each other, the Slytherin’s quidditch team, and couples of older students. Sirius felt at his best, getting pats on the back, flirting smiles and questions asked from all directions.

His eyes kept drifting to Remus though, who had spent the night enthusiastically speaking to Lily Evans near the record speaker, not even glancing in his direction. When he looked this time, they were dancing with a group of sixth years, and he was drunkenly rocking his hips and waving his arms, a wide smile lighting up his red face. He didn’t look away for a while.

“Padfoot, man” James said as he got closer “Either make a move or tone it down”

Sirius turned back, flustered, and quickly joined the group who was teasing Jonathan Radek on being head-over-heels in love with some Ravenclaw girl. He ignited some laughter when he pointed out that she was probably having at it with Severus Snape as they talked and drowned another drink.

“Sirius” Remus called from behind him, and Sirius turned back, grinning “Fancy a smoke?”

Sirius nodded drunkenly and basically floated towards the open window, Remus strolling alongside him. He took out a fag, putting it on his own mouth, and then took another one, putting it on Sirius’.

Sirius lit them up with a flick of his hands and watched Remus inhale eagerly.

Remus squandered all the money his mother sent him on cigarette contraband. His habit was almost chronic – he had picked it up from his ex, Andrew Novogatz. Thankfully their relationship had been short-lived, and they saved all the physical affection to moments they were alone – the maximum Sirius had to witness was hand holding.

He often lent them to Sirius. Sirius only smoked to watch Remus’ up close.

“Sweet sixteen” Sirius said, breathing out smoke, and Remus smiled “Make a wish”

“Alright” Remus complied, closing his eyes for a second “Done. It’s your turn”

“It’s not my birthday”

“As the solemn birthday boy, I declare you can have one wish, too”

Sirius smiled. He always wished for the same.

He felt the urge to say it out loud. It was happening increasingly often, the sensation of the words climbing up his throat, choking him, dying to be put out there. It felt as if they hanged off his mouth, sometimes.

“Did the fifteen treat you good?”

“So good” Remus smiled wide, leaning against the window frame and facing Sirius, the forgotten cigarette hanging off his hand “It was a hell of a year. The full moons! And you all have finally reached my prank tier, we did some memorable shit. Also, I’m officially the fucking best student on Transfiguration. I had sex. We found the passageway to the kitchens. I started to dread Quidditch a little bit less. We also-”

“I want to tell you something” Sirius interrupted him, in a fit of bravery.

“Oh, okay. Go on, then”

Maybe it had been the alcohol, or the way the moon shined on Remus while he talked shit. Probably it was the weird sensation that all they had was that moment, that nothing had even happened before and that tomorrow was a mere possibility. It felt ephemeral, like he could just wake up and find this all to be a dream, and Sirius didn’t want it to slip through his fingers.

He inhaled deeply, looking away and then looking back at Remus.

“I like you”

Remus’ smiled died on his mouth, and he turned around and propped himself up on the window, taking a drag.

Sirius mind started racing: did he not understand it, did he not believe it? Sirius started to mentally organize a way to say that it wasn’t a prank, nor a joke, nor a whim, nor an easy route because he was gay and he was there, that he _really_ wanted it, more than he wanted to be Quidditch’s captain or get out of his house, that he wanted it all the time, that he had wanted it for almost a year.

“I don’t really feel the same, Padfoot” Remus said, before he had the chance to explain it further, looking at the space in front of them.

The music stopped. It was like Sirius had been abruptly woken up and, unfortunately, it wasn’t a dream, not at all, in fact, he had never felt quite so real, so conscious of the small space that existed between his middle and Remus’ elbow.

They stood still for a little while, finishing their cigarettes. Sirius thought that he deserved an explanation, or some reassurance, or simply an apology. If the positions were reversed, Sirius would say that he was sorry, that Remus was amazing and that he still adored him, that it didn’t change things.

He finally gathered the courage to look at him, focusing on a strand of light brown hair that curled around his hear. Who was he trying to fool? The positions could never be reversed.

“Shall we?” Remus asked as he stubbed the butt of his cigarette and grabbed Sirius’ as well, putting it back on his packet.

“Yeah” Sirius mumbled.

He turned around, feeling as if he had a piece of his heart on his throat, another one on his stomach, another one at the back of his spine, a million of tiny pieces scattered across the floor, and a vacant space where his heart should be. When he fantasized about telling him, it usually ended with Remus leaning over him, kissing him, telling him how happy he was, how happy they would be. He hadn’t anticipated this, and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

Without bothering with forcing a smile, he made his back to James’, filling an anonymous cup with Firewhiskey and taking a huge sip. The music resumed.

“So” James carried his words, completely oblivious to his friend’s state “Made a move?”

“Nah” Sirius replied, finishing up his drink “Toning it down”


	5. PURPLE TUESDAY

“We should go to the Headquarters first, re-group, at least warn someone-” James starts, but Sirius quickly gets up, map under his arm, and rushes down the stairs without sparing him a look.

He is squeezing into his leather jacket, a little tight and worn out, when James, already by his side, asks “Is it really a matter of two-minutes?”, Sirius nods, “Let me at least tell Lily, then, it’ll take-”

“We’ll be home soon enough, now, come on” he impatiently waves his hand, and double-checks the coordinates in the map, shaking all over.

“We’ve got something to tell you, Padfoot just- listen to me for a minute, man”

“James” he sighs, panickily “I’m sure it can wait”

James shrugs and shakes his head in defeat, extending his arm so Sirius can apparate them both to somewhere he’s never been before.

He can barely see anything in the complete darkness, but he can smell it, magic, old, older than the magic he could smell in Grimmauld Place, or even in Hogwarts, electrizing and primitive, already there before the distinction between regular and dark was made, more powerful than anything he had ever encountered.

“Holy shit” James whispers and Sirius nods.

He opens his mouth and can taste the magic in the air. It’s the strangest sensation. He calls out for Remus, and only hears the rustling of the pine trees back.

James blindly guides them through the forest for a while, both of them holding their lit-up wands, heavy breathing. Sirius’ hands are shaking, and he feels a knot in his throat, so it’s James who calls out their friend’s name.

They hear a loud thud, and start running towards the sound, not finding anything at all when they reach a clearing of utter silence. They look at each other, mirroring each other’s despair.

“Divide and conquer?” James asks.

“Maybe we should turn” Sirius suggests at the same time.

They do both. Prongs goes east and Padfoot goes west.

Solitude is clearer when he’s a dog – in his human form, he can dig his nails into his thighs and trick himself, tell himself he’s fine, he has James, and everyone feels lonely sometimes, everyone’s heart is breaking, and everything’s temporary, he will feel better eventually, it’ll be alright someday. Now, in all fours, there’s no bullshitting: he’s alone, chasing Remus, and that’s eternal.

The truth weighs on his chest as he covers the ground, rushing down along a stream, racing, sniffing, following every little noise, and then, the sound of James’ voice, shouting his name.

When he finds him, he’s holding Remus, who seems to be regaining consciousness. Sirius turns and runs towards them, and lets out a shaky breath as he falls to his knees, pressing shaking hands against shaking shoulders.

“Moony, moony, moony” he chants, or he cries, eyes skimming over torn clothes exposing a body strangled by dark spider webs, a chart of cursed veins. Remus whimpers, and trembles, and contorts himself, trying to get out.

“I don’t know what the fuck this is, I’ve never seen it” James says as he holds Remus in place, and Sirius roams his hands over his body, spills out every healing spell he can remember.

“My hands” Remus, body motionless, manages to mumble.

Sirius grabs them, frozen and trapped in black threads, and brings them to his mouth. He focuses on the magic he can feel around him, inhales it deeply and channels it through his lungs and exhales it with a few magic words, memories of being seventeen and having Remus do it for him. He feels Remus’ hands warming up in his, and when he looks at him his eyes are already open, drowsy and soft, staring.

“I’m going to be really fucking upset if I turn out to be dying and God looks an awful lot like Sirius Black”

James laughs wetly and Sirius sighs, relieved.

“You’re good enough to Apparate to St. Mungo’s with me?” he asks softly, hand cupping Remus’ jaw.

Remus nods, and barely whispers, mouth wobbly “Look who turned out to be a hell of a healer”

_// wet lick, done licked the gold stars of my heart_  
_golden roses over enemies and sprinkled with serenity_  
_tryna’ stain the legacy //_

It was only the second lesson of the second day of classes after Christmas, but Sirius knew he wouldn’t be able to make it, not with that aching heart and those itching hands.

The inevitable had happened: Regulus, who gradually went from defending Sirius’ on arguments to a neutral position, finally joined their parents side, accusing him of choosing his mudblood friends over his _own family_ , calling him a blood-traitor, a disgrace, a fruit, the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and so on.

Losing, if it wasn’t lost already, the only thing that tied him to Grimmauld Place at that point, Sirius got himself disowned, hexed and kicked out, after shouting, as loud as he could, that he _despised_ them, and that he dreamt of getting fucked by muggle men, squibs, muggle-borns and half-blood beasts, all at the same time – a very classy and glamourous exit, Sirius reckoned.

He ran to the Potters’ house, in Salisbury, inducing a very sad Christmas evening, where everyone cried, except him. He wished he could cry though, the gap in his chest was getting suffocating, and he wanted to let it out more than everything. He used to think that, once he got out, it would get better, the pain and the shame would be more bearable, but as time went on Sirius started to realize that the majority of his thoughts were fairly stupid.

James explained it all to Remus and Peter, bless his soul, and they had given him the space to sulk and be miserable, until that point.

“Come to the Hospital Wing with me?” Remus asked him when the class finished and he nodded, uninterested “Wormy, tell Prongs we will meet you in a minute”

With his hands in his pockets, Sirius had to put in some effort to keep up with Remus-long-legs-Lupin, their arms bumping because of the lack of synch in their footsteps, along with unnecessary proximity.

“Pomfrey isn’t here” Sirius pointed out when they get to the always-open-now-closed door.

“Yeah, she usually goes fetch new ingredients and such Tuesday morning” Remus clarified, charming the door open.

“So what happens if one has a near death experience Tuesday morning?”

“Sucks to be one, then” Remus smiled, entering the room and looking at Sirius to ensure he followed “On the contrary, it’s a lucky day for you”

“Is it now?” Sirius said, unbothered, praying for some 10-months-post-rejection-sexual-healing at the back of his mind.

“Yeah” Remus closed the door behind him and turned to face him “Now, let’s see your hands”

“My what?” Sirius exhaled, taken aback and sinking his hands further down his pockets.

“Your hands” Remus insisted, making his way towards the enormous cupboard “which have been hidden in your pockets for the last 40 hours, unless when you’re vigorously scratching them under your robe”

“Don’t you have your own shit to worry about?” Sirius grunted, secretly flattered with the attention, but still very conscious that he couldn’t show Remus his hands.

“Well, I can’t risk losing my Quidditch cup because my beater can’t hold his broom”

Something eased in Sirius’ chest, but he still didn’t move.

“Padfoot” Remus insisted tenderly, brown eyes full of loving concern “Come on, I just want to help”

It was irresistible, really. Sirius sighed, making his way towards Remus, who met him halfway and grabbed his hands as soon as they left his pockets. He tried to mask his horror as he held Sirius’ burning hands, full of blisters and raw wounds, ‘blood’ written on the nails of his left hand, ‘trait’ on the nails of his right one.

“The ambition to be a bastard versus long words, who wins?” Sirius joked, but Remus didn’t smile, not even with the corner of his mouth.

“It’s the same hex Mulciber was tormenting muggle-borns with, before Christmas. Different letters but, uh, same spell” Remus pointed out, quietly, and Sirius flinched, knowing he shouldn’t have shown him, because now Remus knew it was Regulus’ doing, which made it more real, and way sadder.

Remus looked up at him, which Sirius took as a plea to talk about it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even look at his eyes, probably full of pity, so he kept his hand down, staring at their joint hands.

“I know just the ointment” Remus ended up saying, dropping one of Sirius’ hands and gently pulling him by other, towards the cupboard.

With his free hand he searched for the ointment, clumsily opened it and took some of it, splashing it on the hand he was holding – the relief Sirius felt was instantaneous, and he gave Remus’ his other hand, sighing as Remus’ enveloped them on his own.

“See?” Remus asked, letting go only to grab a bit more of ointment and gently spreading it on Sirius’ hands, no longer burning. He caressed them until they had absorbed it and itched no more.

“Thanks” Sirius muttered, without looking at his face.

“Now, the injuries” Remus sat on the closest bed, pulling Sirius with him “they’re probably going to leave a few scars”

“That’s alright”

Remus began whispering little spells, and with which one a wound became a bruise.

“You would make a hell of a healer” Sirius finally looked at him, golden hair over his eyes as he focused on Sirius’ hands.

“I’m no good at Potions” Remus replied, but they both knew it wasn’t about that. Sirius felt stupid whenever he brought prejudices against Remus up “Feeling better?”

“Loads” Sirius assured, looking at his brand-new, non-hurting hands.

“Pomfrey couldn’t find anything to undo the nails but-”

“They’ll grow out”

“Do you want me to paint them?” Remus spoke quite fast, looking up and Sirius almost laughed.

“Does the magic cupboard have nail polish?” they locked eyes for a second, and Remus tilted his head before smiling and dropping Sirius’ hands, getting up.

“No, but you know Mafalda Sylvester, the Hufflepuff?” Remus asked as he walked over to a bed in the middle of the room, kneeling down and reaching for something “She’s always here for uh, lung checkups, or something, and has a shit ton of nail polish, to keep her entertained. She does really cool drawings with it, on her nails, you know? And I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if we used a bit, she lent it to a lot of people before, myself included, actually she only suggested but I-”

“Alright, Moony” Sirius interrupted him, amused “You can paint my nails”

“Only if you want to” Remus said, straightening up and looking at Sirius from over the bed.

“I do, I do”

“Which colour?” Remus smiled “Purple’s good?”

“Yeah, sure”

Remus got up and came over, purple nail polish in his hands and a shy smile on his mouth. He sat down, legs crossed, and held Sirius’ right hand, carefully painting his nails.

Sirius’ heart ached, for a different reason this time, as he noticed how Remus’ fingers moved, and how firmly he held his hand, caressing Sirius’ pinky with his thumb slightly, very, very slightly. Was he really the only one feeling the electricity where their fingertips were touching?

“Alright, the other one” Remus said quietly, changing hands.

He wondered if he was doomed to non-reciprocal relationships – giving up his well-being for his brother, to be hexed. Longing for his best friend, to be rejected. He wondered if Remus was aware of it, and if he was, if he pitied him.

“We have to wait just a little bit, for the second hand, so it looks better” Remus looked at Sirius, who nodded, and didn’t let go of his hand.

They stood quiet for a while, but it wasn’t comfortable, not really. Sirius thought that it would be a great time to cry: he was sad, and he was with someone he trusted. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to.

“You can’t tell James” Sirius whispered.

“How did this even escape his notice?” Remus whispered back “You have been with him for like, a week”

“I wore gloves”

Remus chuckled, and Sirius didn’t have the heart to tell him that James was more focused on the trembling, and the nosebleeds, and the living flesh on his back.

“I won’t tell him” Remus assured, starting the second hand “But can I know why?”

“Look at what he did to Snivellus, when he called Lily a mudblood”

“What _he_ did?”

Sirius inhaled. Yes, he had taken part in it, but he felt off after that, and Remus’ disapproval confirmed that it had been too much. He confronted James, arguing that whenever they messed with someone, from forcing second years to give them their candy and mocking a classmate to hexing a Slytherin, they always left an outlet free, letting the kids go and quitting the teasing if the target seem distressed, or giving their opponent a chance to either hex back or back down. And in that situation with Snape they hadn’t, he was disarmed and defenseless and undressed and six feet up and they had stretched the teasing and the laughing while he shivered and hiccupped, which had been terrible on their behalf.

James argued that it was different, and that Snape was cruel and a pureblood supremacist, but promised to always leave an outlet free from that moment on, probably just to shut Sirius up.

Remus’ finished the nails up and casted a drying spell, but didn’t make no move to leave whatsoever, even though they were late to class.

“I just don’t want him to hurt Reg, that’s all”

“He won’t, if you ask him not to”

“They’re all the same to him”

“Slytherins?”

“Death Eaters”

Remus squeezed Sirius hand and it felt as good as the ointment and all the spells combined. He wished it was fondness, not pity.

Sirius didn’t want pity, because Sirius wasn’t afraid. He was ready for war, he had been fighting it for a while now – he had grown up on a warzone, he had fought Death Eaters from the moment he understood what they were. And as everyone dreaded what was to come, he was just glad that he wasn’t alone anymore, that he had his friends and experienced adults fighting alongside him. The war had already come for him, the only difference was that he was no longer an angry 13-year-old going to bed without dinner, he was a soldier of a team. He had a chance. And he was ready to take it – but not at Regulus’ expense.

“But I can tell. The difference, I mean” Sirius said as he looked up and so did Remus “I’m not afraid to fight them. But Regulus isn’t one of them. He could never be. I can’t explain it, but-”

“You don’t have to. You saying so is enough” Remus said earnestly, looking into his eyes and holding his hands tight “For me”

Sirius felt his heart grow three sizes.

This wasn’t rejection, Sirius thought, this was also love – not in the romantic, sexual way he wanted it to be, but in a way that was just as real. It could break his heart, but it also healed his hands. He would take the good and the bad. And it would have to be enough.


	6. ME & MY PIANO

Remus stumbles when they apparate and Sirius holds him by his side, perhaps a little tighter than necessary, and looks up at him, scared, sharp jaw now with a considerable beard, scratched and bleeding. Their eyes don’t meet, he hears James talking and then cold, nursing, experienced hands take Remus away from him.

James keeps his hand on his shoulder, even while he writes to Lily, but it’s more unnerving than soothing. The lights hurt his eyes, but if he closes them all he sees is Remus shaking and choking.

When Lily gets there, James is surprised by how quick she was, but for Sirius it seemed like hours have gone by. How long stood Remus there, he can help but wonder, and feel guilty, because he had known since he woke up, and he should’ve done something sooner. He thinks about telling James and Lily this, but he already knows what they’ll say, and he doesn’t feel like getting a pat on the back.

“He could’ve died” he says instead, and James tightens his grip. They’re at war, people die, members from the Order die, Sirius knows that, but not his friends, not Remus, young, bright, lovely Moony, who will be off to another possibly lethal mission in a fortnight.

Lily brought him his notebook and a generic ballpoint pen and told him to doodle something. Sirius only draws with quills and pencils, Lily would’ve known that if she had just opened it. He thanks her anyway and sketches a lighthouse he vaguely remembers from Germany, when he was thirteen and was reading a book about a sailor who was torn between a siren song and the light leading home. Remus had lent it to him, told him it was written by a muggle who knew a thing or two about magic.

His hands shake too much for it to turn out any good. He’s terrified, and he dislikes pens anyway.

When they’re allowed to see Remus, sedated by an awful lot of painkillers, Sirius doesn’t dare to touch him. Lily does, runs her hand through his hair and plants a kiss on his forehead. To someone who hadn’t seen him before, he must look gruesome laying there, no color on his cheeks, enormous eyebags under his eyes, ugly bruising everywhere the bandages didn’t cover, strangling marks on his neck and on his forearms.

“They cut his hair shorter, didn’t they?” she asks, and James nods.

Sirius thinks of golden locks of hair too dirty to be washed, contaminated with God-knows what, and wants to cry.

“Suits him fine”, he manages to say.

They wait for him to wake up, and time seems to pass by faster when he’s looking at Remus breathing steadily, and can quietly fantasize about kissing him awake. It’s inappropriate, of course it is, but Sirius is lovesick and thought about little else the past thirteen days.

By the third time James yawns, Lily intervenes, “He’s really deep in his heavily-medicated-sleep, and you two need to get some rest. Let’s go home, we’ll be here first thing in the morning”

James agrees and reaches for his coat, but Sirius shakes his head, remaining sat down. He remembers a similar situation, when he didn’t stay, but he feels, or hopes, maybe knows, that things are different this time around.

_// don't leave me 'cause I need you_   
_open your eyes_   
_and promise to fly with me in the blue sky_   
_let the raindrops demise onto new lands //_

It could never have been enough, Sirius thought as he watched Remus sleep, breathing through his mouth.

Sirius was bound to fuck it up – there was no way he could kept restraining himself, drawing invisible lines between psychological connection and physical attraction when it was all the same all-consuming shit for him, scolding himself in what he could and could not to, holding himself back, without it all crumbling down. Whether it was telling Snape about the Shrieking Shack, or another equally wrong slip-up, the outcome would have been the same: Sirius fucking it up.

Remus had bald spots in his head, hair that he certainly ripped while in his human form. Sirius touched one of them and cried.

There was a thing inside him howling for it, for love, for sex, for raw and exposed feelings, and he had been driving himself mad trying to keep it in. He couldn’t live like that, with Remus as only a friend, a middle ground that ate him away, a denial that denied a part of who he was.

Remus’ lower lip was busted. Sirius knew it would leave a nasty scar, that Remus would hate with a passion. He wanted to kiss it.

He fantasized a lot, and that was his biggest mistake.

“Padfoot” James called from the door “Come on. You don’t want to be here when he wakes up”

He did. He wanted his wrath, he wanted it all.

“I just want to apologize”

“I don’t think an apology will do, not now”

Remus had the trace of dried tears around his eyes. He was crying when he was put to sleep. It was Sirius’ fault. Sirius was always measuring how much his little rejections hurt, but this hurt in an unmeasurable way.

“Alright” Sirius mumbled, getting up and crossing the room.

“Pads, just give it time, you know-”

Sirius left and closed the door behind him.


	7. SUNNY CALIFORNIA

Sun shines through the blinds, softly, when Remus’ nose starts twitching and he blinks. Sirius grabs a magazine that is lying around and opens it on a random page.

“Hi” Remus croaks, voice barely there.

“Hello” Sirius looks at him and, to avoid grinning, gets up and grabs a glass of water “How are you feeling? I should call a nurse”

“I’m fine” he props himself up to drink it, and his eyes go a little soft around the edges when they make eye contact “How did you even…?”

“I’ve been researching on location spells, as you know” Sirius says, gaze fixed on a spot over Remus’ shoulder “Had a feeling you might be a good test run”

“A feeling, uh?” Sirius shrugs as an answer, and puts the empty glass on the bedside table, sitting down again, looking at his hands “Divination cries for you every day, man”

Sirius’ eyes divert to the corner of Remus’ lips, turned upwards.

“Pretty sure it was more of a Charms situation”

“Quiet down, whoever hears you talk might think you went to school and actually did your homework” Remus says sweetly, tender, weightless eyes on Sirius’, a closed-mouth, drugged-out smile dancing on his lips.

“Ouch” Sirius says as he leans closer, gently flicking two fingers on Remus temple.

“Ouch”

Sirius fingers stay still, barely touching Remus’ head, as he observes his round, drowsy, brown eyes, flecks of yellow close to the irises. _He’s here, he’s here,_ Sirius thinks as he opens his hand and runs it through Remus’ hair _, he could still be in those woods, he could be dead, but he’s here._

“I shared a dorm with this guy” Sirius says quietly, his eyes on his hand on Remus’ nape “who did his homework in fifteen minutes, everything perfectly right mind you, two days before it was due, and he used to lend me the answers, which I paid attention to, so, it was as if I actually did my homework, thank you”

Remus’ smile bursts, crooked and all-teeth just like Sirius likes it, and he can’t help but smile back.

“Lucky you, then” Remus’ gaze flickers down to Sirius’ smile, and then back to his eyes “Really impressive, this guy you shared a dorm with. Was he fit?”

Sirius laughs, shoulders shaking, fingers twitching, and Remus feels it against his skin, “Not bad”

His whole body hurts, and he figures Remus is worse off in that matter, but they stay that close for a while, scattering each other’s faces with their eyes, _you’re here, you’re here, you’ve been here and you will be here and you could be anywhere but you’re here_. It all feels surreal, as if they’re figures in a painting.

“Sirius” Remus whispers, hypnotizingly smiling, inches away from his face “Sirius, Sirius. Will you kiss me?”

“Uh?” Sirius exhales, feeling out of breath.

“Kiss me, please”

Sirius leans in, his hand still on the back of Remus’ head, and brushes his lips against his. It’s clumsy, and quick, but it leaps Sirius’ heart upside down anyway.

“I love you” Remus whispers, his smile way smaller and quieter, staring at Sirius jaw “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out”

Sirius doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. Remus quickly drifts off to sleep and he tries to think only about the way his hair feels between the crack of his fingers, and time slips through them.

When Lily and James arrive, the clock marks half past eight.

“Still asleep?” Lily asks and Sirius gives her an affirmative answer. He wants to tell them what happened, but he simply grabs his coat, gives James a quick hug and rushes out of there.

As he meets the cold December air, he realizes that he’s skeptical about what Remus said. After all, he was heavily medicated, just got through a near-death experience – that’s the definition of fragility. And he had been telling him no for years, time during which Sirius only became more selfish, and arrogant, and obsessed, and reckless – was Remus settling for him?

He chooses to take the tube and walk home the rest of the way, the sound of the wind and the cold on his neck muting his thoughts, exhausting him. He falls asleep as soon as he lays down.

When he wakes up, the sun already setting, the first thing that comes to his mind is the understanding that it was the kiss that threw the situation off balance. An ‘I love you’ without it would’ve been different, a manifestation of gratitude and appreciation, that Sirius is sure Remus feels, not of the lust and passion that he so desperately wants him to.

And given that Sirius knew Remus was fragile, and slightly alienated, he shouldn’t have kissed him. Had he taken advantage of the whole situation? Did he lost the self-control and the moral fiber that enabled him to decline Remus’ advances when he was clearly out of it, years ago?

He feels himself panicking, hands shaking as he makes tea. The fiasco of summer of 77 was different, he knows, whereas that morning had been tender, more similar to thirteen days ago.

Regardless, he can’t help but remember that the worst thing about that night at the Potters’ was how it got his hopes up, and how devastated he felt when he realized that Remus in his right mind still didn’t want him, and showed no remorse whatsoever in backtracking.

He can’t know for sure it’s going to be different this time around.

_// they say there's beauty in reflections_  
_I was chosen, hopeless virgin like your necklace, dancing_  
_all you ever do is blow me kisses, and some //_

It was the middle of August, Sirius was practicing with his new muggle guitar on the bed, legs propped up against the wall, and James was reading the new number of his favourite Quidditch magazine when the doorbell rang.

“Darling, go get the door!” Euphemia shouted from the kitchen.

“You’re darling” James said, not looking up from his magazine, glasses at the tip of his nose.

Sirius arched an eyebrow.

“I’m not getting up”

The doorbell rang again.

“James!” Euphemia shouted again, and Sirius stuck his tongue out, satisfied.

James exaggeratedly grunted and threw his magazine across the room, getting up and rushing down the stairs.

Sirius picked up _Sara Smile_ from the start – he already mastered the beginning, and was keen on playing it over and over again instead of learning the rest of the song.

“Sirius” James called from the door, with an urgent tone, and Sirius leaned his head back to look at him, seeing Remus over James’ shoulder. Taken aback, he dropped his guitar arm, which fell straight on his face.

“Shit” he hissed, holding his head and turning on his stomach, looking up at Remus “didn’t know you were coming”

“My mum’s hospitalized” he muttered, looking down “Couldn’t stay alone for the full moon”

Sirius looked at James, eyes widen, affronted for not having been warned.

“I didn’t know, I swear” James said in his defense, and Sirius rolled his eyes because they were not supposed to discuss it with Remus _there_.

“He didn’t, really” Remus backed him up, finally looking at Sirius, with a certain disdain “Dumbledore reached out to Ms. Potter directly, asked if I could use the basement”

“Alright” Sirius said, sitting up and making room in the bed “I’m glad you’re here, anyway”

Remus didn’t dignify it with a response, and the task to alleviate the mood fell on James shoulders.

“You’ve been staying alone? If your mother’s-”

“Only at night” Remus seemed upset for having to go through this conversation “I spend the days at the hospital”

“Oh. If you don’t mind me asking, what-”

“Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Degeneration of nerve cells, basically. Terminal stage”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You’ve never told-”

“No, I didn’t”

James cracked his jaw and his knuckles.

“I’m going to-” James stopped himself in his tracks “Padfoot, why don’t you go and write to Peter? We could have a Marauders weekend”

“Certainly” Sirius said, getting up and leaving, wondering if he and Remus would be able to be left alone in a room ever again.

“So, what you want to do?” Sirius overheard James asking Remus.

“I’m sure you’ve gone over a shit ton of Defense Against the Dark Arts material” Remus sounded as if he was breathing easier already “Put me on”

They hadn’t spoken since what had happened. Sirius gave Remus his space, watching him hate him for a distance, and even though he knew that what he did was unforgivable, he hoped that they could find a way through it – he knew better than to hope things would be the same, but they couldn’t ignore each other forever.

Sirius was truly glad he was here, anyway. It had to be a good sign: the first interaction wasn’t properly warm, but Remus knew Sirius would be at the Potters’, and if it was that much of a problem, he would have asked Dumbledore to go somewhere else. And he hadn’t, which was good.

He wrote to Peter, inviting him over, and made his way back to the room, sitting across his friends and listening to what James was saying while stealing glances at Remus. Occasionally he would complement James’ explanation with side comments, and when Remus asked for a clarification on something he had said, Sirius held his gaze as he explained.

Eventually the dawn came, and with it, Peter. He pleaded for a little Quidditch match before dinner, arguing that while James and Sirius spent the whole summer practicing, he hadn’t been on a broom since June. They complied, and Sirius had a surprising amount of fun.

For dinner, Euphemia made two enormous cottage pies, that the boys devoured while Peter told them everything about his summer conquest, the girl-next-door, who was home-schooled and really gifted and oh-so-pretty. He managed to engage both Sirius and Remus in the conversation without making it awkward, a feat that James was yet to achieve.

He was telling them about his 6-step-plan-to-marriage as they ran up the stairs, and he crashed on James’ bed as soon as they got in the bedroom.

“Got rid of the bunk-bed?” Peter asked, burping “where have you been sleeping Padfoot, on the window step? Shit, I’ve just rhymed”

“Got my own room, Wormy”

“Sick of sharing with Prongs?”

“Oh, you know, it was fine until he slipped his hand under Ms. Evans’ shirt” Sirius said, sitting crossed-legged on the floor “Since then he’s become a professional wanker”

Peter snorted with laughter, and even Remus smiled.

“Fuck off, virgin” James flipped him the finger “You’re just jealous”

“I’d rather” Sirius put his hand to his chest and held his other hand up “die a virgin than fuck Lily Evans. And I mean it like-”

“You know she had a crush on you, on fourth year?” Remus asked and Peter and Sirius burst out laughing, while James opened his mouth in shock.

“Swear on your life” Sirius demanded.

“I swear” Remus smiled, and he was looking at Sirius and smiling “She used to say you had like, posh bad boy charm, or something”

Peter and Sirius laughed even harder.

“She made me report back every conversation we had” Remus kept going, still looking at Sirius “You going out with Sylvia Martin broke her heart”

“Enough” James pleaded, with his hands over his hears.

As Peter laughed more and more, Sirius calmed himself down, and stared at Remus. He stared back.

“You’re like” Peter said, roaring with laughter “second best choice”

“No”

“The closest she could get to the love of her life, our posh bad boy”

“Shut the fuck up” James insisted, as Euphemia entered the room.

“James, language!” she said as she dropped two sleeping bags on the floor, reaching over to gently slap James’ head “Well, boys, you will sleep here, since Sirius’ room is full of stuff you must not touch”

“Old man put his money on a prophecy” Sirius told the other boys and Euphemia slapped his head this time.

“Yes Sirius, go around telling everyone”

“Sorry” he apologized, smiling, and then turned to Remus “You can have my bed. So you can rest properly before the full moon”

“No, thanks” Remus said shortly, looking down, and Sirius winced.

“Actually, it’s a good idea-” Euphemia started, but Remus interrupted her.

“I said no” it came out as rude as possible, and James arched an eyebrow.

“You can’t talk to my mother like that, just because yours-”

“James!” Sirius and Euphemia interrupted him at the same time. Remus was in shock and looked like he was about to cry.

“It’s alright Remus honey, you did say no”

“I’m sorry” he recoiled, looking down at his hands, squeezing one of his fingers.

“Don’t be, it’s alright” Euphemia assured, visibly concerned. She gave James a stern glare, before turning to Sirius “Sirius darling, let’s go? It’s getting late”

Sirius nodded and got up, following her out of the room.

“Night, wankers” he said as he turned around, and both James and Peter wished him goodnight back.

Euphemia and Sirius made their way to his room. Dumbledore said, and it could be based on just a suspicion, you never know with him, that The Dark Lord could be looking for a prophecy, and he wanted to be as informed as possible regarding Divination as a whole. He had asked for Euphemia’s help, since she was quite good at catoptromancy and tessomancy. And Sirius, from the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, who had grown up around the most famous and expensive crystal ball in the whole wizarding world, offered to help.

Since the end of July, they filtered out every crystal ball Dumbledore sent their way. Sirius knew quality, he could say when they were counterfeiting, too small, too big, too tricky, too foggy, mirrored, cursed. Whenever they were good, he focused really hard on them and Euphemia took notes of what he saw.

“Let’s see this one” she said softly, carefully handing him one crystal ball as he sat on the bed.

He grabbed it and looked at it attentively.

“These are the ones we have at Hogwarts” he said, and Euphemia looked closer “they’re baby-proofed”

Euphemia laughed as he handed it over and put it on the ‘discarded’ case, handing him another one.

“This’s too heavy” Sirius said, but kept holding it, closing his eyes, breathing deep and opening them again.

He saw something he recognized: a dark purple smear, with lighter points of lilac on the top right, and a golden line being violently drawn at the bottom

“This is what I used to see at home” he mumbled, and Euphemia quickly grabbed the little notebook “Let me draw it please, I know it better”

She fetched wax pencils and watched curiously as he drew.

“Do you know what it means?”

“No, not really” he said as he finished it “You see the line here? It is in motion, being traced, seems like a flash of light, and then it’s gone”

“Yes, I see. You never wondered about the meaning of it?”

“I did, but I couldn’t ask” he shrugged. He only spent so much time crystal-gazing because it was pretty, and he was bored.

“Your family never guessed anything about your future? Isn’t it tradition?”

“You have an official fire-omens session when you turn 17” he explained, tired out and with a headache after seeing something so clearly “but they’re against reading to family members, like it’s not impartial, or something”

Euphemia nodded, and fondly put her hand over his, and he remembered.

“Look, here. It gets messy with the scarring, but can you see this line, between my thumb and my wrist?” he asked and she nodded again “my aunt, who was really into palmistry, said that it meant that I was destined to be screwed over by a prophecy”

“Screwed over? How so?”

“Wronged” he explained “Suppose that we make a deal, and I hold my end of it but, because of a prophecy, you’re crowned empress of Egypt and I never see you again anymore, and you don’t have a chance to hold your end. I was screwed over. Happens a lot, in the fate world”

She chuckled, fixing up a strand of his hair that was out of place.

“So it means that-” she started, but was interrupted by the door opening, and Remus coming half in, before looking up and stopping abruptly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know” he said as he backed down. Euphemia and Sirius exchanged a look.

“No, Remus honey, come on in, we’re already finished” she said, and he stopped, reticent.

“No, it’s fine, we can talk tomorrow-”

“Now, don’t be silly” she said, getting up, and Remus came in “Want me to fix you some tea?”

“Yes, please” Sirius nodded and smiled at her as she left, holding the crystal ball and closing the door behind her.

Remus looked at him. It was the first time they were alone since it happened.

“You didn’t take Divination at school”

“I’m a natural, what can I say?”

It was needless to say, but it reminded him too much of home. It provoked no reaction on Remus whatsoever. Not a smile, not a shrug, not even a nod. He kept looking at him with a straight face, for what felt like hours.

Sirius had no idea on what to do. He thought about asking Remus if he had changed his mind regarding the bed, but it wouldn’t be funny, nor adequate, considering how the conversation ended up. He felt quite small under Remus’ burning gaze. He wanted to invite him under the covers and just lay there.

“I shouldn’t have” Remus muttered, turning around.

“No, wait” Sirius actually reached out, sitting on his knees when Remus turned back “for the tea, at least”

Remus bit his lip and nodded, looking around and looking back at Sirius.

“Don’t you have nothing to say to me?” he asked, finally, in one breath, and Sirius frowned in confusion “Like, how did the whole situation made you feel?”

“Huh” Sirius was taken aback. Made _him_ feel? “Fucking sad, I guess. Angry that I wasn’t able to protect you from myself”

“You just-” Remus exhaled, pushing his hair back stomping his feet “you withdrew yourself, completely. You were not even there when I woke up”

“I’m sorry” Sirius said, unsure “I thought you would just tell me to fuck off, or punch me, if I tried to talk to you”

“I deserved to, I think”

Sirius arched an eyebrow. Was that what it was all about, revenge? Remus wanted him to beg for forgiveness so you could just what, spit on his face?

“Have at it, then. Humiliate me, if that’s what your peace costs”

“Stop trying to play the victim” Remus grunted, and was ready to keep going when Euphemia knocked on the door at the same time.

“Yeah, you can come in” Sirius said, getting up to get his cup of tea “There’s no need to knock on your own house”

“Well, it’s your room” Euphemia smiled, and leaned to give Sirius’ a kiss on his forehead “Don’t stay up until too late, darling, I reckon James wants to go exploring. Goodnight, dear boys”

“Goodnight” Remus forced a smile, and Sirius nodded while he sipped his tea. She smiled fondly as she left.

Alone again, Sirius sat crossed legged on his bed, holding his mug tightly and staring at it. Remus sat at the end of the bed, staring at his own tea as well.

“You didn’t try to reach out, not even writing during the holidays” Remus said quietly “and today it was all staring and smiling and it- it seems like it just passed you by”

Sirius hugged his knees. He wasn’t expecting it, Remus doubting that he cared.

“It didn’t. I felt terrible. I just- well, I don’t usually regret things I’ve done, you know that, I wouldn’t know how to deal with regret. You knew I was sorry, and I just wanted to give you space”

“You just didn’t want confrontation”

Sirius shrugged and sipped his tea.

“I don’t know. Whatever name you can think off, I’ve been called. The silence hurt me as well, but I did it for you”

Remus tapped his mug with his fingers and then looked at Sirius, looking back down at his tea when he met his eyes.

“You could have come to me, as well” Sirius kept going “we share most of our classes, and a dormitory. I would be easy to corner, you know, if you felt like throwing a tantrum”

Remus threw his head back, as if exasperated but unable to argue.

“Tell me how to fix it then, if distance doesn’t do it” Sirius insisted, feeling bold. He could just reach out, touch Remus’ arm, or his knee “How did the whole situation made _you_ feel?”

When Remus glanced at him, he had a funny look in his eyes, and it was gone just as soon.

“Angry. Not only at you, at everything, for staying quite the same when, for me-” Remus looked away, and his shoulders shook. Sirius was going to put his arms around him, he was, he was “And worthless, like I could be traded for a few laughs. It made me wonder if you meant anything you’ve ever-”

Remus shook his head and got up abruptly.

“Moony-”

“I can’t do this” Remus breathed out, putting his half-drank tea at the top of Sirius shelf.

“Come one, just finish your tea” he pleaded as Remus made his way to the door.

Remus shook his head again, getting out of the room without even looking at Sirius and closing the door behind him with a thud.

Sirius fell on his back, running his hands through his face. What the _hell_ had just happened?

He was too tired to think it through, so he took the easy route, imagining a tomorrow where Remus’ would wake him up with words of forgiveness and adoration, and drifted to sleep as he imagined Remus’ long, pretty fingers braiding his hair, as he did a couple times.

He was woken up by the smell of pancakes – close enough to Remus’ sweet words, he thought as he ran down the stairs. As he got to the kitchen, he saw him and Euphemia baking, without using magic, and involuntarily smiled. They didn’t notice him.

“And what happens afterwards, once it’s over?” she asked as she cut fruit up.

“Madam Pomfrey usually fixes me up” Remus clarified, pouring the pancake dough into frying pan “I know a few healing spells as well, you don’t have to worry about it”

“You can teach me some” Sirius intervened, and Remus turned back, startled, his hair a mess.

“What have I told you about eavesdropping?” Euphemia playfully scolded him, and he sat on the kitchen bench next to Remus, sticking his finger down the dough and licking it.

“Dog” Remus whispered, not looking at him, and Sirius smiled widely.

“Me and your son wouldn’t have to eavesdrop if you and your husband just told us what we want to know” Sirius playfully argued with Euphemia, and she shook her head.

“You already know too much, darling. Set the table, would you?”

He did as he was told, and then sat down and stared up and down at Remus, sweatpants sitting low on his narrow hips, tense back muscles shifting under his white t-shirt, stretching ever so slightly, exposed neck glistening with sweat.

Sirius felt his underwear tightening and looked down at his lap, realizing how obvious it was. He rolled his eyes – he made fun of James, but at least he was getting his hands under shirts.

“Be here in a minute” he said as he left the kitchen, and rushed back to the bathroom, closing the door behind him and reaching for the lotion.

“Fuck’s sake” he cursed as he threw his head back, thinking of Remus in his white shirt, laying over him, teaching him healing spells, whispering them in his ear, against his neck, biting it gently, then biting it harder just so he could heal it with kisses afterwards, for the sake of teaching. He thought about undressing his friend as he increased rhythm, his own mouth on his neck and trailing down his body, tracing his scars with his tongue, provoking the most beautiful sounds, and then having his mouth utterly fucked. He dragged his own fingers to his mouth, sucking on them, and came with a whimper.

He didn’t feel guilty anymore when he masturbated over Remus – he used to fight it in the beginning, and then get really sad, but when it was clear that the fantasies were there to stay and he would be sexually frustrated for quite some time, he started to regard it at as some kind of self-care. At least, it prevented him thinking about his mate while he was engaging in sexual activities with someone else, and he had to admit that the fact that the object of his desire was often laying on the bed next to his, or down in the kitchen in this case, added an extra thrill to it.

He washed his hands and fixed his hair, painting his waterline with a water-proof pencil and making sure he looked good, and unsuspicious, before he left the room.

“We’re going to the waterfall today!” James sang as Sirius entered the kitchen, and he threw his arms up in excitement “Mom already fixed us some lunch”

“You’ve no idea how beautiful it is” Sirius said to Peter as he sat down to eat.

“More beautiful that Hogwarts’ Quidditch pitch?”

“Tough choice” he mumbled with half a pancake on his mouth “but no, almost there though”

Remus ate as much as the three of them combined – he was always starving the days before the moon – and Sirius wondered if Euphemia had put some extra food for him. He knew he’d not ask.

He also smoked more, and Sirius quickly went to his room to fetch his half-smoked pack that he relied on very occasionally, meeting the others outside.

They made their way through the woods, Sirius as a dog so he could sniff the right path. It took them about two hours to reach their destination: a pretty little lagoon with a waterfall, hidden from everything by the dense vegetation. Remus and Peter were struck by the view, amazed.

James quickly took off his shirt, exchanging a look with Sirius – they usually went skinny dipping, was it offside with this company? James shrugged and arched an eyebrow, Sirius widened his eyes and shook his head, and James dived into the lagoon with his underwear on.

Peter followed suit, and Sirius seized the opportunity to sit down next to Remus and hand him the pack of cigarettes.

“Jesus Christ” he almost squeaked, taking one off and lighting it in the same breath “Thank you”

Sirius took one for him as well, even though he was not quite feeling like it.

“I don’t have a sickle on my name” Remus confessed, laying down, his head on his folded arm.

“I ought to pay a lifetime supply of cigarettes back to you, can start with the rest of that pack”

Remus nodded, half-smiling, and squinted his eyes to the sun, his chest lowering when he exhaled, lips parted. Sirius stared at the crook of his elbow, soft, soft skin, pale and without any scars, with three little freckles forming a triangle – it was absolutely within reach, he could touch it with only a slight movement of his own, he could trace the triangle with his fingers, with a little more effort he could even lay his head there, maybe kiss one of the freckles, or the three of them.

Sirius got up to join Peter and James before he did something he regretted.

As soon as he jumped in the sweet, fresh water, mischievous hands pushed him further down, and the three of them engaged in a vicious drowning battle that ended up with Peter out of the lagoon, bent over and throwing up gallons on gallons of water, as James and Sirius cried with laughter.

“Come on, Wormy” Sirius said as he got out of the water, laughing still “let’s go get some wild berries, I swear to you they’re raspberry sweet just how you like them”

Peter exhaled loudly and Sirius glanced at Remus, who was already staring at him and awkwardly, far too fast, diverted his gaze.

Sirius took that ego boast with him and Peter to wild berries harvesting.

“What if they’re venomous?” Peter asked as he ate one.

“You die in your underwear” Sirius shrugged, eating another.

They had already eaten half the berries they had picked when they came back to James and Remus, shirtless Remus, eating their sandwiches.

“You can have mine, Moony” Sirius said nonchalantly, not looking at him, as Peter grabbed his own “Prongs, please, _please_ , throw berries at me to see if I can catch them with my mouth”

James did, and Sirius turned out to be exceptionally good at it – they gradually increased the distance between them up to a point where James was next to Remus, at the highest rock, and Sirius was down at the water, Peter floating next to him, confident in their truce.

“We might have just discovered your biggest talent, Padfoot!” James shouted.

“The coolest talent ever, what the fuck!” Sirius shouted back.

“Moony finished your berries!”

“He’s forgiven if he comes and joins us!”

James and Remus chatted for a bit, and James resumed shouting.

“You can’t stare at his werewolf bite!”

Remus slapped his head and then got up, unbuttoning his jeans and getting out of them in the least graceful way possible, diving into the water just as clumsily.

They spent the whole afternoon playing around in the water and laughing, sunbathing and talking shit, exploring the surroundings and tripping on each other’s feet – it was amazing, just as good as before it happened. They came across a little flowerbed of wild violets, and James made them stay there for half an hour as he braided Sirius hair and adorned with the flowers, using no magic.

Sirius’ and Remus’ eyes met quite a few times, but Sirius didn’t glance at the back of his friend’s leg, not even once.

They apparated back home as the sun started to set, and Euphemia stormed into the room.

“A little bit past curfew, don’t you think?” she seemed distressed.

“Mom, is everything alright?” James asked, frowning.

“Your father and I have some Order business we need to they care of” she explained as she went back to the living room, looking quite disoriented “We’ll explain everything afterwards Sirius, just trust us for now,” she shut him down before he asked anything “your hair does looks delightful darling, you’ll have to do it to mine someday” she gathered a pile of papers and put on her shoes “Don’t wait on us, there’s dinner in the oven – Fleamont, they’re here!” she shouted as she turned back and stared at them “I didn’t want to leave a note and go, we’ve been waiting for you” Fleamont ran down the stairs and went to grab their coats “We’ll be here tomorrow night Remus honey, nothing to worry about – and well, Peter, I’m really glad you’re here. You’re the one I trust the most” she said before they apparated to their mysterious mission.

“I can’t wait to go on missions” Sirius said, and James nodded in agreement.

“Well, as the recognized authority” Peter said, climbing up the sofa “Prongs, is the cornerstone full of cheap alcohol still at the top of the street?”

“Hasn’t moved” James replied, distracted.

“I can go” Remus said, and Sirius thought of joining in “I want to use the payphone to call my mum, if that’s okay”

“Yeah, sure” James nodded and went to fix him some money.

“I’m going to take a shower then” Sirius informed them, turning away from the missed opportunity of alone time.

“Don’t wash your hair” Remus said at the door, and they all turned to face him “it’s pretty like that”

Sirius heart skipped a beat. Peter snorted.

“Sirius darling, please don’t wash your pretty, pretty hair” Peter said in a mocking, high-pitched tone, and Remus rolled his eyes.

“Fuck off” he said, meaning it, as he stepped out “or wash it, I could give a fuck”

The room stood silence after Remus closed the door behind him.

“Why would you do that?” Sirius asked Peter, not bothering with masking his disappointment “Not even James-”

“You should have seen yourself. There’s only an acceptable amount of drooling, even for a dog”

James laughed at that, and Sirius frowned, sulking on his way up the stairs.

“Your hair looks delightful, darling” James sang as he and Peter threw themselves on the sofa.

By the time Remus came home, three bottles of muggle alcohol under his arm and remnants of crying in his face, James had already showered, and it was Peter’s turn. He went to the kitchen and then sat on the sofa with them, next to Sirius.

“Alright, mate?” James asked, and Remus nodded. James tried to establish eye contact with Sirius to plan out an approach, but Sirius’ gaze was focused on his other friend, and he observed for a while.

“Teach us some healing spells?” Sirius asked quietly, and Remus shrugged.

“I can do them myself”

“I know, but this time you don’t have to”

Remus twisted his nose.

“We don’t even have something we can try on. I don’t want your first attempt to be on my body”

“As a last resource” Sirius insisted and James pinched his thigh, asking for him to drop it. Remus noticed “we will only attempt to if, for some reason, you’re not capable. And even if we don’t need it after tomorrow, they will come in handy, sometime”

“Alright” Remus reluctantly agreed and got up; Sirius followed the movement from his knees to his ass to his chest and stared as he went to grab their wands.

“So, if I break a bone” Remus started, and Sirius flinched. He wished James’ parents would be stuck with something harmless and not home the next night, so they could spend the moon with Remus “you use _Brackium Emendo_ first” he pointed his wand with a twist of his wrist “and _Ferula_ after” he did an ellipsis-shaped movement.

Sirius could watch Remus cast spells all night long.

Peter ended up joining them and they theoretically practiced the same five spells for a while, until they did it just like Remus and were all starving. They sat the table while Remus had a shower, quizzing each other on the respective spells they had just learnt.

The first bottle of alcohol was empty by the time they finished dinner, and the second disappeared while they talked about Hogwarts, and the war, and girls, and boys, because ‘was Sirius serious about the whole Clyde Schulz thing?’; their little late nights in the Quidditch pitch were incriminatory at best and James wasn’t about to lose his chance on wrecking Hufflepuff Quidditch team just because Sirius had it for their chaser, which he didn’t, by the way – Clyde kissed his neck often and sucked his dick once but they were basically strangers, outside of that.

The drainage of the third one was almost entirely Remus’ fault – Peter had only a little while James and Sirius danced to _Radio Ethiopia_ , Sirius’ current favourite record. James was drunker, by far, with his hands over Sirius’ shoulders, on his chest, on his hips for a little while – Remus stared blatantly.

It happened when Sirius went to the bathroom. As he washed his hands, his pants still unbuttoned, Remus came in and they stared at each other through the mirror. Sirius smiled at his reflection, completely pissed and so, _so_ pretty.

“Hey” he said, not moving, and Remus licked his lips and crossed the distance between them with three steps.

Sirius closed his eyes and slowly turned over. This close, Sirius could smell him, the sweat and lavender on his skin, the alcohol in his breath, his own peachy conditioner on his hair, and something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint; he wanted to hug him.

“I don’t know how to ask for this” Remus breathed out and Sirius opened his eyes, only to see him grabbing the waistband of his jeans and kneeling down.

For a fraction of a second he had no reaction, and then he wondered what if he just let him.

“No, no, no” Sirius said as he pulled Remus up, one hand on his ribcage and the other tugging the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“Come on” Remus pleaded, leaning into Sirius’ grip, his eyes closing, drunk off his mind “Don’t you want it?”

“No” Sirius asserted, shoving him so he was standing on his own two feet, a little harder than necessary because _how dared he?_ “You’re drunk as hell and angry at me”

Remus stared at him, frowning a little, barely no colour on his sweaty face. Sirius could see the inner workings of his mind going through a thought, with the effort it takes when one is shitfaced drunk. He turned away and made his way to the door in the same three steps.

“Not angry, not anymore” Remus said at the door, not looking at him.

Sirius heart tightened, and he wanted to push Remus down the stairs, because _how dared he?_ He was either completely out of his mind or aware that he was being plain cruel, because he knew how bad Sirius wanted it, he had to know, and he just went and did that. Sirius didn’t deserve it, Sirius couldn’t take it, he would literally not survive another one of those, and then he wondered if he wanted it to happen again.

Of course he did, he reasoned as he looked at himself in the mirror, he fantasized about it since he was fifteen and he knew that from that moment on he would obsess over this moment every day and wouldn’t be able to discuss and still, he would expect, even wish for, something similar of sober Remus. He zipped his jeans up and washed his face, already feeling it eating him away.


	8. HOPE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is my favorite :))

Sirius is still drinking his tea, now lukewarm, when Peter stumbles out of the fireplace, holding onto the back of the couch.

“Hello. James wrote, told me what happened, invited me for dinner, said he had news. How are you?”

Sirius lies and, after a bit of small talk, he drifts off while Peter tells him all about his last night’s raid with Mary and Dorcas, where nothing much happened, but he still manages an entire monologue about it.

He is drawn back to reality by the sound of the key on the lock: he is expecting Remus to come along and can’t help but smile when he pops up behind James, smiling back at him, lower lip caught between his teeth and looking way more alive. Peter gets up to hug him.

“You’ve scared us, man! And you look like shit!”

Sirius tries not to roll his eyes; Remus laughs and holds Peter tightly.

“I’m off to a well-deserved shower, go help Lily in the kitchen!” he says as he lets go, and nods at Sirius before he leaves the room.

Sirius peels and cuts potatoes to fry while Lily explains to him and Peter that no one in the hospital had ever seen such a curse before, that it was probably new dark magic, and that Remus had done a battery of tests and they had let him come back home with the promise that we would return tomorrow’s afternoon to run a few more, but he was recovering well, no signs of permanent damage, and the nurses had said that healing at the scene must have been top-notch.

“Where’s that incense we bought last week?” she asks as she checks the upper drawers “James, where did you put it?”

“Already used it for a bit, left it in the bathroom” he replies as he marinates the fish, hands full.

“Sirius, be a darling and go get it?”

He strolls down the corridor to find the door at the end slightly open but knocks anyway.

“Come in, come in” Remus says, and Sirius finds him in his slim-fit khakis, rubbing shaving cream on his face, the mirror hazy with the exception of a spot Remus had wiped to see his face. He smiles at him through his reflection, and breaths out “Hello”

“Hi”

He looks for the incense and quickly finds it. He doesn’t want to leave yet, but he doesn’t know what to say.

“I think this is all just karma for not joining you all in your no-shave-november” Remus chimes in as he taps the razor on the sink “the universe had to find a way to give me a beard”

“And aren’t you worried about what’s going to happen now that you told it to go fuck itself?”

Remus laughs, “The thing is, I didn’t, not completely at least” he stops to sweep the razor down his cheek “I’m keeping the haircut, you see. James offered to fix it up, but I’ve just have too much respect for whoever cut it. I mean, the level of no-fucks-given you have to achieve to just, you know, blindly and aimlessly cut huge chunks of someone’s else hair, right?”

Sirius stares at him as he does it again, steady hands, face stretched, jaw pointed up, hair damp, eyes focused. If positions were reversed, he wouldn’t be able to do it so smoothly with Remus standing that close to him.

“Absolutely. Fierce nonchalance is something I recognize as truly inspiring”

“Thank you for understanding”

Sirius props himself on the countertop to draw a little heart on the mirror steam. Remus scoffs, and keeps shaving, unfazed by the fact that he is being blatantly stared at.

“You missed a spot” Sirius warns him when he opens the tap to wash up and leans in to take the razor from his hand. He holds his face in place and then gently draws the razor over the missed spot, and hears Remus’ breath catch. He looks into his eyes, thinks they’re going to kiss, doesn’t know if they should, and then he looks away and the moment breaks “Right, I’ll be going, meet you in a few”

He cringes on his way to the kitchen, and if he’s unsure that the awkwardness of the situation was perceptible to Remus, the fact that he barely glances in his direction while they wait for dinner to be ready makes it pretty clear that yes, it was.

Sirius sits artfully relaxed on the sofa, good posture and one leg stretched and the other one folded the way they look best, hair down, half behind half over his shoulder, not tucked in his ears, the way it looks best, a trained expression of casual interest, the one that drives everyone crazy, smoking as slow as he manages, his free hand on his thigh, sprawled, not shaking, overall trying to look as good as he possible can, his years-old _look at me, notice me, look at me, want me, fall for me_ , demeanor, as useless as ever, since Remus only looks in his direction twice.

Remus, on the other hand, just looks effortlessly gorgeous even though he went through hell and back the day before, awful fucking posture and a ridiculous haircut that somehow manage to enhance a charm made of pretty hands and kind eyes and a crooked smile. It’s really unfair, and Sirius can’t stop staring.

He’s so spellbound that he only registers what Lily just said through Remus’ expressions, widen eyes and mouth falling open, throwing himself to her arms, yelling “Oh my God, congratulations!”

“You’re both fucking crazy, you know that?” Peter asks, and Sirius just laughs, and laughs, catching the hand James was going to smack him with mid-movement and pulling him in for a hug.

The rest of the night is baby talk. They go over the most ridiculous names they can think of, amazed with the amount of shit Potter rhymes with, Sirius tells them everything he remembers about nursing Nymphadora when he was fourteen, Remus says he has never met someone younger than five, Peter used to babysit his neighborhood and has stories for days, and James ends up crying and confessing that he just wishes he can be as good a dad as his father is.

Sirius suspects it turns Lily on, because she hints for Peter to leave and starts setting up the couch for Remus, making sure she has James for herself behind closed doors in less than ten minutes. Sirius thinks about sticking around and hanging out with Remus, but then he yawns, and Sirius takes it as cue to leave as well, so he does.

Sirius takes ages to fall asleep, eventually gives up and half-heartedly reads a novel for a while and then has fragments of terrible sleep during which he can only dream of Regulus, Regulus on the summer after his second year, mastering the spells Sirius had learnt on this fourth, impressive as he was impressed, both of them brilliant and young and aware of their brilliance and youth, and then Regulus dying, alone, shivering in the woods like Remus was, only eighteen, calling out for their mother, maybe even calling out for him, and Sirius too distracted and forgetful and careless and absent and scatterbrained and selfish to sense it, to do something about it.

He wants to burst into James room and tell him that’s what he’s bringing a baby into, tell Lily that she was supposed to be the smart and cautions one, and just because her family is safe doesn’t mean death can’t touch her, because it can and it will and if she can’t protect herself how will she protect a baby, a baby.

He goes to the kitchen to make tea instead. Lily will certainly move in, and he will have to move out. His hands are shaking and he drops the empty kettle on the floor. And then, when the water starts to boil,

“You woke me up”

“Can I fix you a cup, as an apology?”

“You better”

Remus looks angelic, sitting on the kitchen table, silently waiting, barely awake. Sirius wishes he had just turned over on the couch and tried to sleep again.

“How long ago had you been cursed, when we found you?” Sirius asks, his back turned.

“That morning. I talked a bit with the leader of the pack, not a very successful chat, and was walking back to the portkey when it hit me”

Sirius nods, and hands him his tea when it’s done. Remus holds the mug with one hand only, gently blows and then looks up at Sirius, sleepy eyes glistening.

“Did you think you were going to die?”

“No. I have a few things I still want to do”

Sirius looks down, bites his lower lip, and Remus realizes.

“Oh, I- I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t thinking about him. I’m sorry. I was just trying to flirt with you, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that at all”

The corner of Sirius’ lips turns upwards, and Remus tugs his sleeve and he follows him to the living room.

“I saw my mother, though” he says, sitting close to Sirius on the couch, thighs and arms touching, warm beneath the blankets “Before she was ill, young and vibrant. I wish you’d met her. You’re quite similar, sometimes”

They drink their tea in silence, upper arms and thighs, touching, not looking at each other. Sirius feels better.

“You’re alive, Sirius. Life bursts out of you. And you’ve got life all around you, too. I’m here, and James and Peter and Lily and Marlene are too. Hold on to that”

Sirius finishes his tea and drops his head on Remus’ shoulder.

“A fucking kid, Moony”

Remus laughs softly, and Sirius feels it vibrate through his body. “They’re going to adore you” he says, and wraps an arm around Sirius, his hand resting on his waist.

Sirius watches the needles of the clock moving until he is nothing but the skin Remus’ touching. When he yawns, Sirius pretends to be asleep, and Remus pushes him gently so they’re lying down, his head on Sirius’ chest, his leg between his. He dozes off almost immediately.

It feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Sirius thinks as he tries to train his breath to be in sync with Remus’ sleeping one. How long, how hard he had craved this, whished for it, hoped and believed and trusted, even, maybe especially, when it seemed unattainable, and then he knows love is something you build, not something you figure out.

The adoration he has for Remus it’s something that slowly filled him up, taking up every empty space inside him, from the hollow of his throat to the gap between his rib rungs to the bare nucleus of his soul, whether he nurtured or he fought it, to the point where it devoured him and he didn’t know who he was without it. How could it be something he figured out? He had always known; he had always been.

He runs his hand through Remus’ hair and remembers seventh year, New Year’s Eve, how they were intertwined like they are right now, and Sirius prayed for it to be real, to last, and it didn’t, and there he is again, two years later, praying for it to be real, to last.

_// every night in my room and my head still tilts to the moon_  
_I ask God why he still don’t like me; the moon still shines on my tomb like nightly //_

Remus received the letter during breakfast. James, Sirius and Peter stared while the colour drained from his face and his breath shortened.

“My mother” Remus bit his nail, his thumb full of crumbs of a pastry he had been picking on.

“Has gotten worse?” James asked in simultaneous worried and casual tone, in a quite unique James-like way. Sirius, who used to be bothered by this balanced neutrality in trying times, was growing fonder of it.

“As worse as one can get” Remus got up, wiping his hands on his trousers, his breath frantic “I’ve got to get some air or I’m going to be sick”

As he left, Sirius reached for the letter.

“I don’t think you should” Peter said.

“He’s just putting it away” James clarified, and Sirius folded it and stored it in his pockets.

“Shit” Sirius sighed, burying his head between his hands. Remus had finally started to go back to normal, and it was going to be quite a hard blow – even though he knew close to nothing about his mother’s illness, he knew how much Remus adored her.

“Shit, indeed” he heard Peter groan, with his mouth full “Do you have the map, to check where he went to?”

Sirius hummed noncommittally.

“I do, but we ought to leave him be”

Peter frowned.

“You know how he gets-”

“I’m with Sirius, on this one” James intervened.

“On this one” Peter scoffed “As if-”

“He can spend Christmas at ours” James interrupted Peter again, and Sirius couldn’t help but feel warm inside. Ours.

“It’s a great idea, Prongs”

Remus didn’t think so. They only suggested in a couple days after – nine to be exact, a day after the full moon and two days before the Christmas break – days which Remus spent dozing off, or excusing himself for 20 minutes, only to come back with puffy eyes and a running nose.

They were lounging in the Common Room, exhausted after a week of doing last-minute assignments and full after a well-deserved feast.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea” Remus looked down at the book sprawled over his crossed legs, avoiding James’ eyes.

“You don’t have to worry about nothing” James stretched his arms above his head “my parents wouldn’t mind, and Sirius and I would love to-”

“I’d rather not” Remus insisted, tapping his empty pockets – looking for chocolate, or cigarettes – and stiffening his posture.

“Why?”

“I’d feel uncomfortable” he deeply inhaled and pretended to pick up his reading.

“What do you mean?” Sirius, who couldn’t grasp the concepts ‘uncomfortable’ and ‘Potters’ home’ going together, asked, probably a little more defensively than what he meant.

“I mean” Remus exhaled, and bitterly snapped “that I want to put as much distance as I can between me and a loving, healthy mother celebrating Christmas with her sons, that’s what I mean”

“Alright, then” James mumbled, without sounding offended at all. Sirius felt a knot on his stomach that he couldn’t exactly explain and started to unwrap a piece of candy he had on his pocket to alleviate the sensation.

Remus closed his book and uncrossed his legs, his mouth twisted in regret and his eyes full of tears. He hissed when his bare feet made contact with the cold floor and bent down to pick up his shoes, wiping his face.

“I’ll stay with you” Sirius suggested, biting down his chocolate, the salty-sweet caramel warming up his senses. He quietly smiled. Since he would most certainly spend his time at the Potters’ obsessing over Remus’ well-being, he should make himself useful on that matter.

“You really don’t have to” Remus said without looking at him, forcing his foot into his laced shoe.

“Oh, I will stay” he sounded more convinced now, and extended his already bitten chocolate in Remus’ direction.

Remus finally looked at him, sizing him up with an astonishing cheekiness for someone who was in the cusp of crying thirty seconds ago. He stretched and took the chocolate, making a visible effort to brush their fingers and cringing right after, masking his distasteful expression by shoving the chocolate into his mouth.

Sirius pressed his thumb against the skin of his burning finger, and quietly sighed. This was going to be a hard Christmas.

He looked up and saw Remus transferring his weight from one foot to another, looking down and blinking. It would be a little rude to go hide and cry, Sirius gathered, but Remus couldn’t really sit back down and stay with them, could he?

He glanced at James, who was resting with his eyes closed and at Peter, who was also looking at Remus; he turned to Sirius and shrugged.

“To the dorm now, shall we?” Sirius inquired, getting up, and noticed Remus’ shoulders relaxing “I’m knackered”

“Yeah, definitely” Peter yawned as he got up, and James followed suit “Got some more of that chocolate?”

“Sorry, Wormtail”

Once in the dorm, Remus locked himself in a bathroom stale for almost an hour. When he got out, Peter was fast asleep, and James and Sirius’ were going over offensive spells on Sirius’ bed.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier” Remus said, his voice raspy “And thank you for inviting me over, but honestly-”

His voice broke and he looked up, visibly upset.

“It’s okay Moony, I get it” James said reassuringly, even though he didn’t.

Remus shrugged and managed a sad smile before turning over to his bed. Sirius had to fight every molecule on his body to prevent from running towards him and hug him tightly.

“It’s going to be a hard Christmas” James whispered, as if Remus didn’t have supernatural hearing skills.

“So be it” Sirius shrugged “Now, what’s the actual difference between _Deprimo_ and _Reducto_?”

It was, indeed, a hard Christmas. It was too cold for Quidditch and there was no one to prank; Remus still disappeared to cry approximately four times a day, spent the majority of the time immersed in his new book and looked terribly bored when they were playing any game; to make matters worse, because of a midst of lack-of-tiredness and overthinking, Sirius couldn’t get any sleep at night. Remus left his curtains open (an invitation?) and between staring at the moon and at his friend’s beautiful face (or curve of his waist, if he was facing the door), hours would go by. Usually, the sun was already up when Sirius managed to fall asleep.

They didn’t exchange presents on Christmas day – in a normal scenario, they would get each other something the days before, with their respective families, and send it through an owl. Either way, Remus didn’t seem up to celebrate this year. He was reading in front of the fireplace, and Sirius was staring at him, focusing on how rosy his cheeks were.

“Read for me?” he pleaded.

Remus bit his cheek, right below the rosy part.

“My throat is sore”

Sirius sighed. Rosy cheeks and arm-length distance would have to do, then.

Thanks to sweet baby Jesus, Hogwarts’ amazing Christmas’ decorations and cooking left such an amazing smell and comforting warmth in the air, that Sirius felt too at home to hurt.

It happened on New Years’ Eve. He was in the Common Room, pre-reading some of the stuff they would go over in Ancient Runes, having already read the whole DADA manual. Remus went away to cry after dinner and boredom was his new best friend.

“Are you actually pre-reading?” he heard Remus’ croaked voice from behind him “I thought you were allergic to studying and McGonagall’s Quidditch leverage was the only antidote”

Sirius turned around, grinning.

“Who guarantees you that she’s not threating me from a distance?”

“Oh, how did I dare to underestimate the reach of that woman’s power?” the tip of Remus’ mouth turned up as he got closer and Sirius’ heartbeat rocketed. Remus was wearing a woolen green jumper, smelled like pinecone and has chewing on a mint, and everything was so overwhelmingly green Sirius could squeak.

“You’re threading dangerous waters, Mr. Lupin”

Remus finally smiled and held up a new vinyl record “My aunt sent me this for Christmas, England Dan and John Ford Coley, shall we give it a listen?”

Sirius nodded, carefully watching Remus’ set everything up. He glanced at Sirius, then around the room, then at Sirius again, and sat next to him.

_If I did not love you so_  
_I would not go through all this pain_

Sirius closed his book and slouched, in order to appear more relaxed than what he felt.

_I'd find someone else_  
_But I know it would never be the same_  
_We were made to be together_  
_And I keep on thinking_  
_Some things don't come easy_  
_Some things take some time_  
_Some things don't come easy_  
_Some things take some time_

He looked over at Remus, who had thrown his head back and closed his eyes. This was just his type of rock, smooth voices and guitars sweet like honey. He looked peaceful, below all the layers of exhaustion.

_I guess that there was a time_  
_When I felt that you could do no wrong_  
_You'd just be yourself_  
_And the days were there for us alone_  
_But nothing stays the same forever_  
_We both keep on changing_  
_Some things don't come easy_  
_Some things take some time_  
_Some things don't come easy_  
_Where do you draw the line?_

Remus opened his mouth to exhale, and Sirius felt dizzy with the sight. The slight curve of his forehead - the small, deep curve at the top of this nose – the delicate curve of his nose – the forbidden curve between his nose and his upper lip – his parted lips – the sharp curve of his chin – the long curve of his neck – his Adam’s apple – Sirius itched to touch, just to softly trace. The line was there to cross.

_It's me, it's you_  
_How to hold on to it_  
_It's free, it's new_  
_How to hold on to it_  
_You see, it's true_  
_How to hold on to it_  
_Cause to leave you now_  
_Be the hardest thing to do_

Remus looked back at him and his eyes widened. Sirius couldn’t exactly picture his own expression, but it must have been so, _so_ obvious.

Remus eyes filled with tears. Sirius looked away – anything but crying and leaving, _please_.

_I'm gonna do everything_  
_To regain the feelings that we had_  
_Love you all the way_  
_And forget the things that made you sad_  
_We were made to be together_  
_And I keep on thinking_

“I’m sorry” Remus mumbled, loud enough to be heard over the record player.

“You don’t have to apologize” Sirius replied, not knowing exactly what he was apologizing for.

“You’re 18, it’s New Year’s Eve, you should-”

“There’s no place I’d rather be”

“And I’ve just been despicable, a complete wet blanket and sometimes downright rude, I didn’t even get you a Christmas present, I’m so sorry-”

“Stop apologizing, Remus. You didn’t do nothing wrong. You’ve been delightful, as always”

Sirius sat closer, and Remus moved slightly away, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his jumper.

“I have not, but now I’m just here feeling sorry for myself, begging you to lie-” he sobbed.

 _Please don’t cry and leave, anything but crying, please_ , was all Sirius could think.

He untied Remus’ shoes and gently took them off, praying that Remus’ found the gesture more endearing than pathetic.

_Some things don't come easy_  
_Some things take some time_

He grabbed a blanket and sat as close to Remus’ as he dared, covering the both of them, making it harder for him to get away.

“I’m not lying” Sirius reassured, leaning slightly “I’m happy to be here. It has been fun to hang out with you. I love being at Hogwarts. I liked the quiet, for a change.”

“I also love being at Hogwarts” Remus sniffled “I love it so much that I couldn’t wait for the summer to end, the last summer I would ever-”

Shit, shit, _shit_ , Sirius thought, but it was too late, Remus was crying, not shedding tears, no, ugly, brutal crying. Sirius had never seen anything like it. He understood the need for privacy, now.

He stood still for a while, his mind a mile a minute. He wanted to hold him, of course he did, but was that what Remus wanted? He always searched for quiet and solitude whenever he was distressed, but then, he was there, wasn’t he? And he had told Sirius off for giving him space before.

Hesitantly, he enveloped Remus in his arms, and Remus leaned in, and cried on his shoulders for two songs straight. Sirius tightened his grip, pressing Remus’ warm, honey sweet warm body against his, feeling his deregulated, heavy breathing against his own chest.

_No one else has ever found the part of me you're touching now_  
_Suddenly it's clear to me what a precious thing love can be_

Remus placed his hand under Sirius’ ribcage. His breath hitched. It hurt, but it hurt so good, and he selfishly wished he could freeze time.

When Remus’ breath steadied, he spoke against Sirius neck, not moving away.

“I’m so-”

“Don’t you dare”

They stood still for a while, as Sirius thought about comforting and non-triggering stuff he could say, so it could all hurt less.

“You don’t have to apologize to me, really. You’re dealing with a really fucked up situation the best way you can” he started “And you couldn’t know. About the summer, I mean”

Remus moved slightly to wipe his nose on his jumper, and then nuzzled up against the crook of Sirius’ neck.

“I love you” he said quietly, but Sirius heard it clearly, and it felt like a sting in his heart.

It was unfair, Sirius thought, that Remus Lupin would give him exactly what he wanted, but only when he was fairly drunk, or completely devastated. He had it all, and he couldn’t know if it was real. He couldn’t even say it back.

He wished he was able to get mad at Remus without feeling at conflict with a part of himself. He ought to tell him that there was only so much he could take, establish some kind of boundaries: ‘if you don’t fancy me, don’t try to suck my dick and don’t whisper love declarations’. Would that be too much to ask? He cursed the universe, every single object in the room, every member of his family, the moon and fucking Remus Lupin, for having to deal with that shit.

“She’s the only person I’ve ever said it to” Remus kept going, despite the lack of response “I think I ought to say it to a living person”

He moved his hand to Remus’ hair and gently stroked it. Remus closed his eyes and stretched his arm around Sirius’ back, hugging him and laying his head on his chest. Sirius breathed in, rushed by a wave of emotion.

Even if he could get mad, he had no right to – it wasn’t Remus fault. Sirius knew better than anyone that you don’t choose who you fancy, and he couldn’t resent Remus for not seeing him like that, nor for wanting to be held when he was in so much pain, possibly the worst pain imaginable.

So, he wasn’t mad. He just wished it didn’t have to hurt.

_Now here I am with you_  
_Feeling hope again_  
_This time I hope_  
_There will be no ending_

“Did he just say Hope, twice?” Remus said sleepily “This record is quite shit, honestly”

_So hold me_  
_Tell me that you'll be here tomorrow_  
_Just hold me_  
_Do you have a love I can borrow_  
_'Cause the fire_  
_In your eyes_  
_It makes my heart ignite_  
_So hold me_  
_Hold me tonight_

Remus breath slowed down as he drifted off to sleep. Sirius adjusted their bodies so that he was laid down on his back with Remus half on top of him, his head still on his chest and their legs tangled.

They had never been so close. Sirius could see every thread of hair in his head, every pore on his nose. He gently touched the scar on Remus’ lower lip, who turned out way more discreet than what he had anticipated, and then moved his fingers to his own lips.

_Let our souls unite_  
_You've given love to my life_  
_Tell me that it's not just for tonight_

The clock stroked midnight.

“Happy New Year, Moony” Sirius whispered “I’ll make a wish for both of us”


	9. CONGO (MAMA AFRICA)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where that pg-13 comes in! if you don't want to read it go straight to the flashback 
> 
> the line from the poem Sirius remembers, as well as the poem from the first chapter, are from fernando pessoa, a portuguese author!!

When Sirius wakes up, he catches Remus watching him, and quickly closing his eyes. It makes him chuckle.

“Well, thank God Moony’s still asleep, now I can furtively watch him” he says hoarsely, laughing, and Remus opens his eyes, smiling as well.

“Asshole”

Sirius props himself up to see the time – it’s still seven, he has three hours to spare before work. He lays down again, face aligned with Remus’.

“I’m not surprised that you’re a pretty sleeper but man, it is unfair. Let the rest of us just breath, will you?” Remus says softly, sunlight shining on his hairline, forehead and right eye, lips swollen from sleep, jaw smooth and freshly shaven.

Sirius leans in and then they’re kissing, Remus’ hand cupping his jaw, his whole body pressed up against his, his mouth insistent and hot and passionate and honey sweet, tasting like tea and dry biscuits and his own aftershave.

“Am I only good for early mornings, Sirius Black?” he asks when they come apart for air, smiling like a fool, and Sirius turns his head to kiss the palm of Remus’ hand, still cupping his face, and then rolls on top of him, and kisses him dizzy.

He starts grinding his hips slowly without giving it much thought, kissing the heavy little breaths out of Remus’ mouth and dragging his lips across his jaw and he’s not thinking of sex, he’s really not, until,

“I want to be in bed, I want to be with you in your bed” Remus sounds on edge, and Sirius feels hot all over and gets up, and leads them to his room.

As soon as he closes the door, Remus hands are on the waistband of his pajama bottoms and he pushes them down as he falls to his knees. Sirius gasps with the surprise and groans with the expertise, whimpering on Remus mouth when he comes back up.

“Taste as fucking good as you look, how’s that possible?”

Remus’ mouth looks obscene, and Sirius kisses it sloppily as he pushes him to bed, taking his shirt off.

“Are they oversensitive?” he asks, tracing a scar with his finger, lowering his head to kiss it.

“The scars? No, not really” Sirius shrugs it off and nips his nipple instead, sucking gently afterwards “Not quite into nipple play”

“Oh, come on” Sirius, who gets off thinking solely of Remus’ chest, moans. Remus laughs and that laughter turns into a groan when Sirius makes his way up to his neck again, rolling his hips with only one layer of clothing in between them.

And there he was, Remus Lupin, beloved friend, esteemed student, distinguished Order member, revered object of all Sirius’ sex fantasies, shirtless on his bed, head thrown back, whimpering, viciously licking his lips, hands holding onto Sirius’ hair, and then pulling it.

“The fuck you think you’re doing to my hair, Lupin?” Sirius asks against his jaw, amused, and Remus’ grip immediately loosens.

“Please, do not tell me you don’t like hair pulling” he says slowly, eyes closed.

“Fuck no” Sirius laughs “What are we, balding together?”

Remus opens his eyes and squints, shaking his head playfully “Should’ve a fucking disclaimer: really luscious hair that you can’t pull during sex”

Sirius smirks, “Fantasized that bad about it, huh?”

Remus rolls his eyes and switches their positions, taking Sirius’ shirt off “We will get you there” his eyes wander, and he bites back a smile “Until then, good thing you’re fucking gorgeous”

Remus’ mouth makes his way down, from his collarbones to his abdomen to his inner thigh.

“Second drawer” Sirius breaths out, and Remus climbs over him to get lube and a condom.

Sirius almost gets emotional watching Remus prep him, with an enormous amount of carefulness, and reverence. He gets out of his pants, lowers his head to kiss Sirius there as he slides the condom in, and then comes up, kissing Sirius as he eases into him.

He places his hand on Remus’ shoulder, sensing the muscles shift beneath his hand, and runs it down his bicep, and up again, slides it down his back, feeling warm skin, brings it to the back of his neck and to his shoulder again, draws a little heart with his finger, all naked skin, with him, for him.

“You’re beautiful” Remus says between moans and heavy breaths, mouth open, pressed to Sirius’ cheek.

Sirius remembers a line from a poem Lily had once read to him.  _ I subdue and feel almost joyful, almost joyful as one who gets tired of being sad, _ it went.

He turns his head slightly and buries it in the crook of Remus’ neck, inhaling leather from the couch and sweat and oranges and honey and desire and moondust, kisses the spot below his ear really gently, mouths ‘I love you’ without making any sound.

“This is not doing much for you, is it?” Remus asks, panting “I’ve heard you have sex, you’re not this quiet”

 _It’s alright,_ Sirius, who never does missionary, _thinks, you’re wonderful and I’ve always wanted you and if we’re fucking I want to be close to you._

“Yeah, you’re not really hitting anything” he says instead, and Remus laughs as he slides off and shimmies down Sirius’ body, taking him into his mouth and teasing his freshly fucked hole with his thumb.

The fact that Remus Lupin is the master of giving head is the discovery of the year, Sirius thinks before all thought is lost and he has to bite down on his pillow to avoid waking Lily and James up.

He props himself up on his elbows to watch Remus come, rutting against the mattress and gripping a fistful of bed sheets, rolling his eyes as he lets out a deep groan. He throws the used condom into the trash can and then climbs up the bed to collapse next to Sirius, face down.

Sirius runs his fingers up and down his spine until their breaths slow down, twisting the baby hairs at his nape.

“Hi” he says when Remus turns to face him, eyes hazy and lips puffy, breathtaking.

“Hello” Remus’ voice drags, and he nudges closer to Sirius “Sorry if it was a little underwhelming. High expectations and all, but we don’t know these things about each other yet”

Sirius feels disappointed that _this_ is the first thing Remus says to him post-sex. It had been nice, he had never _made love_ before, he didn’t care about the mishaps.

“Feeling way less jealous of your previous relationships now that I know you can’t locate a prostate”

“You’re a bitch” Remus laughs against his neck, nudging his ribs “I’ll have you know I never had any complaint”

“You date easy, then”

“Until I land _the_ most demanding, uh?” he asks playfully, and then kisses his neck “that’s not a problem, mind you” another kiss “I will devote my _life_ ” another kiss “to learn how to fuck you right” another kiss “and we’ll have better sex than you’ve ever imagined” another kiss “you just watch it”

Sirius nods and Remus throws an arm around his waist, kissing his neck more softly each time, until he drifts off to sleep. Sirius stares at him for a little while, lovely, lovely face and mighty fine body, and then gently gets up, tucks Remus in, and goes for a shower.

 _Moony, moony,_ he thinks as he washes up, _laying naked in my bed minutes after you’ve fucked me, a day after you told me you figured out that you loved me, fourteen days after you kissed me for the first time, five years after you lured me into this, what are you doing, what do you want to take and what are you willing to give?_

For a moment, as he dresses up and steals glances at Remus, he wishes he could read his mind, but then he remembers how fucking awful it was when he did.

_// Hocus pocus_  
_Black magic //_

When they were 13, 14, Sirius and James would fantasize about the greatness of their pranks when they finally reached the 7th year, how they would be bold and unstoppable and fucking legendary.

But, for better or worse, things never happen as they are planned out. James was Head Boy and in a committed relationship, Sirius was obsessed in finding out if Regulus had the Dark Mark, and they spent most of their free time in Dumbledore’s war training. Occlumency, in this fine May afternoon.

“I’ve got some experience, Professor” Sirius said when the old man told them, eyes focused on the floor. His mother had done Legilimency on him countless times, so he had developed quite an expertise in fighting it.

Dumbledore hummed, “May I test it? To see how far it goes, you see”

Sirius nodded, and approached him, piercing blue-grey eyes staring at wise ones.

Dumbledore did it wandless and wordlessly. Sirius though of sand, the different shades of yellow and brown, the texture, the weight, the salty smell. To shut Dumbledore out he pictured him burying himself, legs first then his torso then his head, covering his eyes and mouth and ears and his mind, buried, out of Dumbledore’s reach, surrounded by sand, no memories, no thoughts, just sand, sand, sand.

“Very well” said their Transfiguration teacher “Legilimency?”

Sirius shook his head. He was taught, the last summer he was there, forced to do it on Regulus, and he had hated it.

“Are you sure?” he insisted “It’s in your blood, after all”

Sirius looked at him defiantly. He never genuinely liked Dumbledore – it probably had to do with the fact that Remus basically worshipped the old man, but there was something about the way he only ever half-said what he meant that didn’t sit right with Sirius.

“A lot of things are. Doesn’t mean much”

“Sirius” Dumbledore said, sternly “To join the Order of the Phoenix, you must be able to follow orders, even if they do not exactly appease you”

Sirius looked back at James, who shrugged and tilted his head, telling him to give it a go.

“Should I try it on you, sir?” Sirius asked and Dumbledore arched his eyebrows in amusement. Sirius had to bite back a reaction.

“Mr. Lupin?” he asked instead, glaring at Remus, the only person he didn’t call by his first name. Sirius hoped that he would refuse, but he didn’t, of course he didn’t, he wasn’t able to say no to anyone.

He felt his heart tightening as he heard his footsteps approaching. The prospect of peeking into Remus’ mind was single handedly the most terrifying thing he could imagine, and he wasn’t ready to deal with it, not in two minutes for sure.

His heart skipped a beat when Remus settled in front of him, where Dumbledore had previously been, and his eyes wandered to the enormous hickey on his neck, courtesy of Flynn Montgomery, with whom Remus had been spending every free second of his day. Apparently, Sirius was the only person he was able to say no to, over and over again.

“Don’t try to block it, not yet” Dumbledore told Remus “And then tell me how it was”

Sirius looked down as he breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down and focus on it.

“Ready?” Remus asked sweetly, and Sirius wanted to punch him.

“ _Legilimens_ ” he muttered, the tip of his wand on top of Remus’ head.

He saw Remus, 12 or 13-year-old-Remus sat at a wood kitchen table, cross-legged on the chair, Hope cooking in front of him. It seemed like he was seeing it through a dirty window of thick glass, everything in sepia tones, the sound muffled, but from what he heard, it seemed like a coming-out conversation. Remus cried and Hope wiped his tears and held him, singing a lullaby in his ear.

Then he saw Remus sat on the floor in the Common room, probably last year, certainly before the incident with Snape, the picture more focused but the sound just as muffled. James and Sirius had recently managed the Patronus charm and were exhibiting themselves like clowns in a circus, pretending they would like to teach the other students, but really just wanting the attention. Sirius cringed as he saw himself – he stank of arrogancy, a cocky smirk as he produced silvery dog/wolf after silvery dog/wolf, an overbearing demeanor. While James just looked amusingly proud, Sirius seemed like a smug asshole. When Peter attempted to and failed, he laughed in his face, loud enough for a lot of people to notice. Then, he looked directly at Remus and his cocky smirk dropped – involuntarily, he blinked lovingly and smiled a tiny, private smile, unaware of how fucking ridiculous and smitten he looked.

Finally, he saw Remus in a bathroom, he assumed the Prefect’s one, having a bubble bath with Montgomery, the picture and the sound crystal clear as Remus’ kissed the Hufflepuff’s neck and they held hands above water. Sirius interrupted the spell and looked away from Remus.

He felt like he was going to be sick – was that really how he was through Remus’ lens, as inconsiderate and self-important as his whole family? And then Flynn Montgomery, quiet and unassuming, subjected to such tenderness.

“Uh, well” Remus started, his voice strained, but Sirius didn’t look at him “firstly, he saw what I usually think about when I produce a Patronus. Then the day I first managed to do so, and at last something that happened this morning, sir”

“Is that so?” Dumbledore asked.

“Yes, professor” Sirius managed “they were increasingly detailed”

“That’s quite an impressive sequence, Sirius. With some practice-”

“I need some air” he interrupted Dumbledore, storming out of the room. Before leaving, he heard him ask Remus how it felt.

“Yeah Remus” Sirius mumbled to himself as he reached for a cigarette, hands trembling, in plain sight “how did it fucking feel? Was it pleasant to let me know how despicable I am without having to tell me, was it satisfying to rub on my face how much sex you’re having five months after you fell asleep drooling on me?”

He plunged in his most recent obsessive cycle of thought that he had been repeating like a mantra for the last two months, you’ve-got-no-claim-to-jealousy-and-you-really-need-to-get-the-fuck-over-him as he smoked the first cigarette, and as he lit up the second he felt really fucking weird because of how easy it had been.

Legilimency was pretty advanced stuff, and he did it almost effortlessly. It was family tradition, yes, but was it possible for it to be in his blood, like Dumbledore had said? He had replied that a lot of things are without giving it much thought, but if had the natural talent for Divination and Legilimency, which he didn’t particularly like, he certainly had plenty of other shit. And how he looked in Remus’ memory, patronizingly bored with his own magic, just like all of his cousins.

He had gotten out of his house, but he couldn’t get out of his body. He had found another brother, but he couldn’t find another bloodline. What has he really fighting against, in this war?

He felt a pinch in his arm, pulling him back from his thoughts, and looked at its direction, startled.

“Go back inside, Remus” it came out wobbly and nervous, and Sirius looked away as his friend sat down next to him.

“Spare me one?”

“I’ve have only a few left”

Remus half smiled and reached for the one Sirius was smoking, sprawling himself all over his lap, and not fulling retreating back when he got it, sitting with his thigh against Sirius’ knee instead.

“I remember a time you said you owned me a lifetime supply of nicotine”

Sirius looked at Remus and imagined him reaching again to bury his face on his neck, just like he had done to Montgomery. He felt like if he had it, everything else would be easier to deal with.

“So, usual supper at Grimmauld Place?” Remus asked, fixing a strain of hair on Sirius’ head that was out of place. Sirius closed his eyes, begging for more so vehemently that it wouldn’t take Legilimency to figure it out.

“Something like that” Sirius looked away.

“You must be really good at Occlumency then, if not even Dumbledore-”

“Had to shut the old bitch out during my sexual awakening. One can only dream of cute little conversations in cute little kitchens” he said and immediately regretted as he felt Remus tense up “I’m sorry”

“It’s fine” Remus shrugged, his shoulders tense “So, when was it? Sirius Black’s sexual awakening?”

“When I was 15” he says as he inhales, and decides to go for full disclosure of his white lie “blonde French guy, two years older, Quidditch player, jerked him off”

“You’re bullshitting me”

Sirius wondered what Remus was expecting to hear, if he knew the truth deep down, and what would be his immediate reaction if Sirius had just been upfront, _it was you, on a really hot spring afternoon_. Would he laugh if off, because it was just fucking hilarious, would he tense up and retreat, would he tell his boyfriend late at night with his hand down his pants?

“You’ll have to peek through my mind and see for yourself, then”

Remus laughed sincerely, and after a couple seconds of quiet, “I can see why you wouldn’t want to, you know, be a Legilimens. Especially when they all are”

“Not only Legilimency, I-” Sirius exhaled loudly “all the magic I do, I can’t really escape it, I- I don’t know-”

“Yeah, I get it. You’re a Black, after all”

Sirius shrugged, reaching for another cigarette.

“I love the way you do magic” Remus said as Sirius lit it wordlessly, exhaling smoke “It all comes so easy to you, like it _is_ you, and you’re just channeling it however you like”

Sirius _loved_ the way Remus did magic. Like it was all around him, rogue and unrestrained, and he just let himself be carried by it – yes, he took longer to master spells and was bound to fuck up charms, but he always managed to do something brilliant, in a way that was completely new, and his. From the map and all of his genius pranks, to the way he managed to charm his chocolates so they would always stay in that half-melted state, Sirius loved how resourceful he was, how intuitive. Many times, he wondered if it was related to the fact that he was a werewolf, that he had to deal with such a huge amount of magic when he was too young to understand it. That moment would have been perfect to discuss it, if Sirius didn’t have an inclination for bad choices.

“I looked like an asshole in your memory” Sirius said as Remus stubbed the first cigarette, finally looking at him “like, an attention whore”

“It’s part of your charm” Remus shrugged amused, and licked his lips “and well, I was paying attention”

Any other time, it would have been extremely well-received, thought about extensively before Sirius fell asleep. This time, it felt like tantalizing, as if he was saying ‘yes, you’re charming and I pay attention to you, and I will tell you those things, but in my mind there’s Flynn Montgomery’s exposed throat and open legs and that’s something I will never, ever want from you’

“Do you love the way Flynn Montgomery does magic?”

Remus mouth twisted in discomfort, but Sirius didn’t feel better.

“He’s not keen on putting it to use, so” he replied, scratching the back of his knee “he plans on flying away once the year ends, said he doesn’t want to partake in what’s coming”

This ignited something in Sirius. Were Remus’ standards so unbelievably low that he would lay with such a _coward_ , and was Sirius really below that? With the weight of all his family flowing through his veins, he thought that maybe he was.

“Why don’t you go with him, then?”

Remus neck snapped in his direction, his mouth open in disbelief and his eyes hurt. He waited for an apology, one, two, three, four seconds of silence.

“Fucking ridiculous” he spat, getting up “As absurdly jealous as when you were fucking fifteen, you child. And then act surprised for looking like an asshole in my memories”

Sirius heard his footsteps retreating, but not the door opening, and he felt his gaze on his back. He wanted to shrink himself in shame, shove his arms down his throat and withdraw all the debris of his family and his fucking arrogance and his absurd jealousy and maddening unrequited feelings, rip his skin off and bleed it all out. He didn’t know what would remain after all of that, but he would rather be left with nothing.

“Sirius” Remus said from the door, worry in his voice “What’s going on?”

Sirius sighed deeply, “I don’t know” he lied, because it was easier, as he ran his hands through his hair “Can you just- do you think you could just sit down next to me and be quiet?”

He heard Remus’ footsteps coming his way, and he sat down next to him, not as close as before but still close enough so that Sirius could feel his warmth.

“Anytime” it sounded so sweet you would think honey was dripping from his mouth.


	10. GET IT

Work is terrible – one would think there’s a limit of cursed magical objects in this world, but there’s not, Sirius works Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 to 18, and his work team is always overwhelmed with the weirdest fucking paraphernalia. It was fun in the beginning, and then curious antiquities turned into fucking lethal arsenal, and more often than not they can’t understand what they’re dealing with.

Today, Sirius and his colleague Hayley, hopefully one day his friend Hayley, are dealing with flower seeds – there’s a pattern that trademarks a few people who went crazy with realistic hallucinations and had flower beds of these kind, but what can they do with seeds? Sirius tries mixing them with a bunch of potions samples, and Hayley decomposes them and tries to identify the little components, but he’s unfocused and paranoid and can only think of sex and eventual heartbreak, and she’s aware they’re not doing anything concrete or useful, so when she suggests they call it a day at four, he gratefully agrees, gives her a peck on the cheek and hurries home.

When he opens the front door, Remus is lying on the couch, reading while smoking, and when he sees Sirius he just _beams_ and it’s an image so picturesque Sirius feels all warm and tingly inside, and then really, really anxious.

“James and Lily are off to her parents’, giving out the big news” he smiles as approaches Sirius “Marlene’s doing drinks at her place at midnight, a surprise for Dorcas’ birthday”

Sirius nods in understanding, and closes his eyes when Remus presses a kiss to his forehead, and then the cigarette to his lips, his fingers in a V, warm against Sirius’ cold face.

“Hi” he breaths out “How was work?”

Sirius inhales, exhales.

“Remus, I need to talk to you”

“Jesus, was the sex that bad?” Remus jokes, and his expression drops when he catches Sirius’ eye “Well, alright”

He turns his back to Sirius and leads them to the couch, nervous uneasiness when he sits down and watches as Sirius crosses his legs.

“So?”

Sirius struggles on where to start, nervously fidgeting his fingers.

“I’m just- this is all I’ve ever wanted, you know, and I used to think I’d feel fucking over the moon when you finally got your shit together, and I feel, in a way” Sirius plays with his rings, avoiding Remus’ gaze “but I’m also worried, I think, that you will just, I don’t know, lose interest as suddenly as you figured it out”

“It wasn’t _sudden_ ”

“Wasn’t it? Guide me through it, then”

He looks up and Remus is looking at him, frowning, hands nervously going up and down his knees.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Sirius”

Sirius shrugs, and lowers his eyes from Remus’ to his chest “How you figured it out, I guess? I’m sure it all makes a lot of sense in your head, but from where I see things you woke up one day and wanted it, and if that was the case you can just wake up one day and not want it anymore”

Remus stays quiet for some time, and only speaks when Sirius is nearly bursting from anxiety.

“You’re the only person I like to be around the days before the full” he says softly, scratching his neck and looking down “Always were. I feel so on edge, like I’m eating myself away from the inside out, and then you just make me laugh, or rile me up, in a good way”

Sirius chest feels stuffed and he can’t breathe it out. Remus plays with the hem of his orange jumper.

“I don’t think I was really conscious of it until you were not there, sixth year. And then I really hated Clyde Schulz’s guts, and every time I fantasized about you apologizing to me it ended up with you giving me head, and I was really, really angry about the whole thing, because you’re Sirius Black, and you can shot a charming smile your way out of anything, and I didn’t want to be another easy thing you want and then get”

Sirius twists his nose and raises his eyebrows, remembering being seventeen and lonely, disowned and heartbroken, and not knowing who the fuck Remus is talking about.

“Don’t look at me like that”

“I just can’t believe that’s really how you perceive things-”

“You had just betrayed me, and I was stuck having sex dreams about you!” Remus gesticulates widely, sounding exasperated “I felt fucking ridiculous! And in the midst of it I was proving you right, I was right where you fucking wanted me!”

“Don’t- you’re talking about yourself like you were a fucking whim! You can’t possibly think it was a game to me. It was the most important thing, Moony, you were”

Remus breathes in, buries his face in his hands, and then runs them through is hair.

“Yeah, I know. You were _serious_ about it” a slight smile “and then, those Christmas holidays, and you were such a _prince_ about it all” he says softly, and then pinches the bridge of his nose “and Lily started going out with James-”

“No…” Sirius mumbles, not wanting to believe that while he was yearning for Remus like a lovesick dog, he simply thought he was not good enough.

“Yes, she was all he had expected and more, going fucking crazy in the Quidditch matches and making out with him everywhere-”

“I didn’t want fucking Evans, I wanted you-” he looks up, angry, and meets Remus’ frustrated expression.

“I could have not given you what you wanted, Sirius, I really couldn’t-”

“Yeah, so you decided to give it to Flynn Montgomery instead-”

“Come on, we would’ve been fucking disastrous-”

“The hell we would! We _loved_ each other, and you sabotaged-”

“You will shut up and listen to the explication you asked for, alright?” Remus raises his voice and Sirius nods, half upset half turned on, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“We feel things differently, Padfoot. You are so sure about everything – sure about yourself, sure about your feelings, sure about this war. Always have been, certainly were in seventh year”

There it is, Sirius almost laughs, what he was dreading, Remus establishing a contrast between his own feelings and Sirius’ certainty and endurance.

“I was not. I was fucking grieving, and panicked whenever I thought about the war, and then the moon would wane and I would feel detached and incapable, uninterested even, in being intimate with anyone”

Remus is no longer looking at him, worrying his jumper instead, long, calloused, wonderful fingers, and Sirius can feel the sadness swelling up inside him.

“And then you would inevitably do something asshole-ish, and it would reinforce my convictions – well, I mean, sometimes it would get me all hot and bothered” he lets out a small, sad laugh “but then the moon would wax again and I would feel, so, _so_ angry, and sometimes you made it all worse but then sometimes you made it all better, which was confusing as all hell, and then those damned days before the full when I just wanted to, I don’t know, _curl up_ in your arms and be held. And I know you’d do it for me, if I asked”

Sirius hugs his knees, and Remus looks at him and he’s sure he can see that his heart is breaking.

“And it would’ve been really unfair, Sirius, giving you a half-assed, sporadic, _inconstant_ thing when you wanted, and deserved, it all. You can try to deny it, but I _know_ how you look at James and Lily, and I couldn’t have done it, I couldn’t have given it to you. And it would fuck our friendship up, because you would demand it – and this conversation proves it, you would’ve wanted my word that I wanted long term, and I would have to lie to you”

“What changed, then?” Sirius asks and it sounds so small and pathetic that he hates himself for a fraction of a second “I’m still an asshole sometimes, the moon still has phases”

Remus gives him a small smile, gone soft in the corner of his mouth and loving in the corner of his eyes, and Sirius wonders how someone can just go on a monologue about how they don’t really love someone and then look at them like that.

“I don’t really know how many moons I’ve left, I guess”

Sirius’ stomach sinks, that’s it then, Remus thought he could get a better offer outside of Hogwarts but didn’t have much luck, and now doesn’t have much time, so he’s just going for the next best thing, he’s not stupid like James and Lily who think they’re untouchable, he knows clocks keep ticking and someone tasting death on their breakfast should aim for the maximum amount of sex they can have.

“What I mean is, I don’t know if I will ever feel _ready_ , but I know I’ve been stalling. I sleep over so often because you’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and I can only breathe properly after I’ve seen you, and you ground me, and you make me laugh, and whenever things go south on a mission all I can think about is _I’ve got to tell Sirius, we’ve got to give it a try_ , and then you went and found me and kissed me on this couch, and it felt right”

Sirius feels dizzy in the worst sense of the word, his mind and his chest flooded, _give it a try, give it a try, give it a try,_ who says that, what does Remus even feel.

“Doesn’t sound like it. Sounds like death’s knocking at your door and you want a regular fuck and I’m just here”

The corner of Remus’ mouth twists and his eyes widen, and he doesn’t breathe for a couple seconds.

“That’s a very dishonest interpretation of everything I’ve just said, Sirius. I want to be with you, but it wasn’t always like that, and you know it. What were you expecting?”

Sirius feels a little like a fool for having always believed they were soulmates, the perfect match, and for expecting Remus to feel the same. He doesn’t know how to deal with his speech, full of _despites_.

“I need to think about it” Sirius mumbles, getting up.

“About what?” Remus asks, angry and worried and getting up as well.

“About” Sirius waves his hand around, and then turns to leave the room “everything you’ve just said. What you want out of it, what I do”

“I think that’s something we ought to discuss together”

Sirius shakes his head as he reaches for his coat, feeling his chest overflowing, on the brink of crying.

“I’m taking Venus for a ride. You should go to the hospital, we’ll meet at Marlene’s”

“Sirius” Remus mumbles, stood up in the middle of the room, looking lost and beat down. Sirius closes the door behind him and groans.

Fuck his asshole self and fuck the moon and its fucking phases.

_// we don't really make a match in heaven_  
_but we're connected somehow_  
_so come and get it //_

Summer had been good for Sirius – he and James had moved in together (Peter’s family didn’t allow him to move out, and Remus said that he would rather stay at his childhood home, even though he slept over as often as Lily did – they had bought the biggest, comfiest couch they could find, for him), and they would host dinner for everyone twice a week, and it was so, so much fun.

The Order gave him purpose, and he was confident, and trusted, given important missions and going on raids with renowned wizards, who looked tired and emptied out, when you looked up-close.

Things with Remus were good as well – they did a lot of investigation together, and went out to buy new records every week, and cooked without magic, and watched muggle cinema when he stayed over, both of them sat on the couch with their knees touching the whole movie through.

 _This is nice, this is solid,_ Sirius would tell himself, but then Remus would touch his face or smile at him with his tongue peeping through his teeth or look at him with _those_ eyes and he would feel his heart beating at the hollow of his throat, and when they stood really close Sirius hands would shake because he didn’t know how to touch him, if he could, and late at night he would thrust those shaking fingers inside himself and grunt Remus’ name into his pillow, and then Remus would be out of sight for a week and Sirius would be miserable, whimpering _Moony, moony, where have you gone, who are you with, when are you coming home, I’m waiting on you,_ and then he would come and things would be balanced, until they weren’t.

The crash happened in early October: Sirius had just gotten out of the shower when he realized he didn’t have any clean t-shirts – the two 18-year-olds who had lived with house elves throughout their whole life where still finding their way around laundry schedules – so he went to James’ room to fetch one.

He snapped his fingers to light the bedside lamp and jumped when he saw Remus there.

“Jesus fuck!” he clutched his chest and Remus laughed “What are you doing here, with the lights all out?”

“I’ve great eyesight” he tilted his head, raising a book he had on his hand “came to get this, I’ve lent it to James”

Sirius nodded, “Staying for dinner?”

“I’ve got a raid with Marlene in like, twenty minutes. Traces of dark magic in a muggle subway. But I’m probably crashing here after, it that’s okay”

“Yeah, sure” he nodded again. To get to the wardrobe he would have to pass by Remus with only a towel around his hips, and James’ room was so messy that the odds of them not touching were minimum, so Remus had to go left and leave the room as soon as he moved.

He stepped forward, and Remus stayed still, staring at him. Sirius diverted his gaze to James’ shelf, and then back at Remus, who was still staring. Realizing how ridiculous the situation was, he crossed the room in four big steps, bumping into Remus just slightly.

As he opened the drawer, he looked back, to find his friend’s eyes on him.

“What?” he breathed out.

Remus stepped closer, and closer again. His eyes followed a droplet of water from Sirius’ shoulder, through his chest, down to his ribcage, and he reached to touch.

“This is a new one” Remus said, his voice low, tracing Sirius’ new tattoo with his index _“Sowulo”_

“Yeah” Sirius managed, his breath heavy “James and Lily’s birthday. A whole year, who could guess?”

Remus smiled, “The sun?”

Sirius nodded, blushing with the warmth “Once James told me that he didn’t get the concept of courage until he loved Lily” Remus was now touching his chest with two burning fingers “And that he didn’t get the concept of strength until he was loved back”

“Took a while”

“But he was sure it would happen. And he knew when it did”

Remus quietly stroked him for a little while.

“That’s why they are the sun, then?”

“Yeah” he had to take hold of his own hands so he wouldn’t touch Remus, since he didn’t know if he could, and didn’t know how to, and he would not forgive himself if he broke whatever spell this was “it rises, and it sets, that’s what it does, every day. A constant”

“Seems easy” Remus wordlessly turned off the light and sprawled his hand opened, pressed against Sirius stomach, making his gasp “Would you want that?”

Sirius felt actual butterflies, all over his stomach and up his throat, cutting his breath short.

“Don’t know if I could” he only managed a whisper “After all, stars change, constellations break apart”

He felt him lean in, or maybe he was just dizzy with the warmth, the proximity. Then, Remus lowered his head and gave him a chaste kiss on the neck.

“Whereas the moon has phases” Sirius whispered again, wrapped in the eroticism and cosmic symbolism of the situation, but it caused Remus to jerk back, and remove his hand.

“The raid” he mumbled, and cleared his throat “I better get going”

Sirius almost whimpered and considered throwing a tantrum, something along the lines of _What the fuck, you’re not leaving me here in this state, shivering with cold, alone and naked and painfully hard in James’ dark room,_ but he was to shocked to actually react and that was what Remus ended up doing.

As he furiously jerked off, Sirius decided that he wouldn’t let this one go by and wear off. When Remus got there, they would talk, and figure things out, and either kiss or never spend time alone, never ever again.

Remus wouldn’t come home that night, though – James would find Sirius at 3 a.m., furiously pacing in the kitchen, and hear him whining and making empty promises for two whole hours. It would be four whole agonizing days before Sirius saw Remus again, in the Order’s Headquarters, and he would avoid his gaze and leave before they could talk.


	11. MILK MAN

His head goes still when he’s riding Venus – it’s just the weight of his body on the trembling machine, and the road and the wind. Sirius drives to the beach, and runs a little when he gets there, sand on his bare feet while he holds his boots in his right hand, wind cold against his face. He only notices his tears when he stops and sits.

The whole conversation stirs in his mind, and his inner confusion comes out as a groan – if he knows they’re a good match, why does it feel like Remus is settling?

He remembers how the word sabotaged tasted on his mouth, ashy and heavy, and looks at his hand, buried in the sand, miles away from Remus, Remus in his home, his couch, saying that he wanted him. Sirius had always wished for it, for one chance to prove Remus wrong, but now he doesn’t know if he can prove him right.

He lays on the sand, a hand over his own mouth to muffle the sobs, feeling like the same broken record, dreaming about something and then chickening out because he knows he can’t live up to what he imagined.

But this is not _something_ we’re talking about. It’s Remus. It’s _the_ most important thing, in his own words, said out loud, and he won’t be able to stand himself if he can’t at least _try_ for it to be what he dreamed of.

He’s still sobbing, laid down, when an owl flies two circles around him, and drops a letter on his neck. Fucking papyrus, and he rips it off, cursing Dumbledore for not letting him be on his feelings when he drove for the fucking scenery.

His former teacher, now his owner, wants him in the Headquarters, immediately, so Sirius shouts until he’s numb and then puts on his shoes, wipes his face and apparates to the apparition spot closest to the Headquarters, behind a deli restaurant. He takes deep breaths as he walks to the apartment.

“Crow on a wire” he mumbles the password and the lock clicks, and Sirius pushes his way inside, hoping and dreading for Remus at the same time. Instead, there is Peter, reading a repertoire over Dumbledore’s shoulder.

“Hiya, Wormy. Professor.” Sirius forces a smile, and Peter draws his eyebrows in concern.

“You alright, Pads?”

Sirius nods, eyes meeting Dumbledore’s, unnervingly calm and unfazed.

“Evening, Sirius. Someone from the investigation center in Romania took an interest in your repertoire from this morning, on the seeds” he says slowly, placing it on the table “claims having really useful information, and agreed to meet you in order to share it”

Sirius nods again, hands digging into his pockets, “Certainly, professor”

“There’s no need to call me professor anymore” Dumbledore says, and Sirius has to make an effort to not roll his eyes, because of course he does, what else is he supposed to call him, why is he such a compulsive liar “Peter will join you”

He gives him the arranged coordinates, in front of a supply store on a wizard village, and Sirius and Peter walk to the apparition point in silence. Sirius just wants to be done with it as soon as possible, and the fact that this mysterious person with this mysterious information hasn’t arrived yet annoys him beyond words. He starts rolling a cigarette, when Peter says, concern in his tone.

“You’ve been crying, Sirius. What happened?”

Sirius shrugs, “Nothing much, Wormy, don’t worry”

Peter scoffs with skepticism, and sways on the heels of his feet, a nervous nick. Halfway through Sirius’ cigarette, he tries it again.

“Is it because of James and Lily?”

“No, no, I’m happy for them” Sirius shakes his head, exhaling smoke “I think they’re stupid as shit, but I’m happy for them”

Peter chuckles, and hums, and tilts his head to ask “Remus, then?”

Sirius’ breath catches mid drag. He has such a pretty name, man. He tastes the two syllables on his tongue, which traced his skin only hours ago, Re-mus, Re-mus.

“Yeah”

Peter turns his body, showing willingness to hear. Sirius doesn’t know how much he knows, he only ever talked to James about him, but Peter has certainly noticed some stuff. Sirius knows what James would tell him – what are you even doing, Padfoot, go home and kiss him senseless, forever, move in with him next week, adopt a dog and three kids – but well, James paraded naked in the dormitory and forced his three best friends to observe his lips up close and asked his parents for a new broom when Lily Evans kissed him for the first time, when they had all the time in the world and she was ready, what would he know about crying on a remote beach because you’re scared.

“He, uh” Sirius says, and then inhales “said he wanted to be with me” Peter’s eyebrows shot up and Sirius tried to not feel offended “yeah, I know. I just, I don’t know, fear that he’s settling”

“He? If someone’s settling, it’s you”

“Uh?” Sirius asks, stubbing his cigarette, panting.

“How could he settle for someone who likes him _this much?_ ”

“That’s not how it works” Sirius argues, feeling heated up “Then what, I’d be settling because he likes me _just a little?_ ”

Peter shrugs, and Sirius feels furious, he doesn’t know how much they like each other, he can’t make this kind of implications.

“Don’t- don’t make that face” Peter says “I don’t know man, who knows what’s going on in Moony’s head? He’s always so, uh, _frigid_ in his relationships. But it’s convenient, isn’t it? Suspicions start to arise, and he secures someone who’d burn worlds for him”

Sirius doesn’t have time to grasp the depth of what Peter’s implying, let alone have a reaction to it, before he’s stunned, and falls on his knees.

When he opens his eyes, hand on his wand, all around him is this cloud of orange smoke, and he inhales and immediately has a fit of cough, almost chocking. He lays on his front and holds his breath, _suspicions start to arise,_ and he feels dizzy and sick, _this is an ambush, where’s Peter, this is an ambush._

He shimmies to his right, where Peter had previously been, and looks around for him from his spot on the floor, no luck in that, _secures someone_ , and he feels sad and pathetic and just craves Remus, wants him to tell him that Peter’s wrong, wherever he is.

Sirius notices that the door from the supply store is half-open and crawls his way inside, where there’s no smoke, closing the door behind him.

“Peter!” he whispers-shouts. Nothing.

He peeps through the window and the orange cloud is still all he can see. Seems like he will have to wait until the air clears to look for Peter and get the hell out of there, then. _But it’s convenient, isn’t it?_ Motherfucker.

He had already chipped the nail polish out of the majority of his nails when he decides to go have a look upstairs, eventually coming to the conclusion that the magic in those supplies is totally ordinary, not even worth going over. He looks over the window and there’s no trace of orange in the air, and he means to head downstairs, but the sound of the door opening stops him.

“I had him, vulnerable and in front of me, and I will find him” a high-pitched, feminine voice shrieks, and Sirius hears the doors of the cupboards being opened and closed with a thud. He backtracks slowly and makes no sound.

“Those are not the Dark Lord’s instructions, nor wishes” a stern voice, definitely slower but equally alarmed.

The sound of wood hitting the floor, and objects clattering.

“It’s counterproductive, and imprudent, to defy his orders. We’re on the same side. He’s the only one who can grant us a victory” the second voice, a certain tone in a nervous rhythm.

“ _Revelio_ ” charms the first voice, unfazed by the other’s persuasion. The sound of glass shattering.

If they’re only two, Sirius can take them, but he has yet to hex someone since that night in the cornfield, and his hand is shaking around his wand.

“How much were you paid to get the Black boy? We can even that” the second voice, again.

“Not money”

The sound of footsteps on the creaky stairs, and Sirius either hides or fights.

“ _Avada Kedavra_ ” he hears instead, and the sound of a body falling down the stairs. One, two, three heartbeats, and the pop of Apparition.

He catches his breath and hurries down the stairs, looking at the corpse – it’s not familiar, not even slightly, but he scans her face until he feels like he could identify her on a photograph, or something. After him, for a reward that wasn’t money. Too bad.

He gets out the store, makes a right, calls out for Peter, makes a left, and then finds him, searching for him as well, and runs to catch him in a hasty hug.

“A fucking ambush” Peter sighs, _how could he settle for someone who likes him this much?_ Sirius thinks, and then they apparate back to London.

Sirius’ short breath only steadies itself with a cigarette. Peter looks impatient to go back to the Headquarters, and forces Sirius to start walking mid-smoking, which he usually doesn’t mind much, but right now minds terribly.

First thing Sirius’ eyes lay upon when Peter opens the Headquarters main door is Remus’ brown, eager, worried, ones, and he sighs deeply as he closes them, relief washing over his face.

“Wasn’t worried for a second!” James sing songs, standing up and throwing his arms around his friends “Knew you would make it!”

“How’d even know?” Sirius asks in a breath, glancing around the room to find Lily and Alice Longbottom.

“Dumbledore wrote back to Romania confirming, they replied saying they did not set any meeting-”

“Then he wrote us, refused to tell where you where, told us to wait here” Lily finishes James’ sentence.

“And where is he now?” Peter chimes in, and James shrugs. Sirius reaches for the ashtray.

“Fucked if I know” Lily exhales and gestures to the window, even though Sirius never smokes inside “We still have to wait”

Remus gets up and makes his way to the window as well.

“So, what happened?” Alice asks, chin resting on her hand. Sirius is propped against the window frame, eyes on his hands rolling his cigarette to avoid looking at Remus, so he won’t say anything, or throw himself at him, or burst out crying, and stays quiet.

“We’re in the agreed spot, right?” Peter takes in upon himself to start explaining “out of nowhere, Sirius is stunned, and this person tries to petrify me, but I turn into the rat-”

“The what?” Alice interrupts him and his eyes widen, as if he had just given crucial information to the enemy. He looks at James, asking for direction.

“We’re Animagi” he says simply, and Alice mouth drops as she looks between the two of them, and then she starts laughing.

“You and Peter?”

“And me” Sirius chimes in for the first time and hands his rolled-up cigarette to Remus, without looking at him.

“Shit” she exhales, laughing still.

“So, next thing I know we’re surrounded by this poisonous orange vapor” Peter resumes, and it sounds like a question, so Sirius nods in confirmation “and we both hide out, without really knowing where the other is. When the sky cleared, we looked for each other and apparated together”

Lily opens her mouth to voice a question, but Sirius beats her to it.

“I found her. Panicking middle-aged woman, with orders to go after me. Listened a conversation between her and a Death Eater” he stops to lick the paper “he told her to drop her quest, she refused, he killed her on the spot”

Sirius looks at Lily first, eyebrows drawn in and worrying her bottom lip as she tries to make sense of what she just heard, then at James, his blank expression of shock that Sirius really didn’t like, then at Peter, confused, undeniably a little upset for not being told first, then at Alice, arms crossed in front of her chest, eyes travelling through the room, and then at Remus, body turned to him mouth wobbly, huge eyes full of worrying, a trace of anger. The moon is waxing, that’s what it does.

“The letter suggesting the meeting” he says, eyes on Sirius, looking away when he looks back, and then looking at him again “asked for you, specifically?”

“I guess” Sirius shrugs, lighting his cigarette, holding eye contact “Didn’t ask”

“That’s some bullshit” he scoffs as he glances at the room “You shouldn’t have gone. If it was legit, they wouldn’t make these kinds of demands, any member of the Order is suitable to receive information”

“That’s what you do when Dumbledore assigns you a mission?” Sirius turns to Remus too, unconsciously leaning in, almost smiling around his cigarette “Ask someone else to do it?”

“Do you think this is fucking funny?”

He means to sound angry but he doesn’t, and he is leaning in too, eyes fond, and tired, poorly-cut hair disheveled because of his hands running through it in frustration, mouth exhaling smoke, and Sirius has no idea how he felt after he left, and how it went at the hospital, and he feels terribly selfish and sorry and just wants to kiss him.

He is used to the permanent urge to touch Remus, he thinks it is part of him at this point, but right now he wants to hug him, or touch his face, or run his hand through his hair _so_ much that it hurts, he feels his stomach folding in on itself and his heart clenching and he _is_ going to jump on him or drop to his knees and apologize, when the door opens.

Dumbledore walks in, and behind him a girl with short blond hair, a fringe and dark glasses and nothing more, nothing less than Frederic Bellerose.

“Now, this _is_ fucking funny” Remus snarls.

_// milk //_

It was a chilly April night, and Sirius was at Headquarters, going through a bunch of stuff that was harvested in different warehouses that were suspicious for one reason or another. While he was discriminating cursed/poisoned dragon-heart strings from regular ones, he heard a voice that was once familiar.

“Sirius Black?” said a French accent, and Sirius turned around. Frederic Bellerose, in the flesh, dead handsome and three feet away from him.

“No way! Frederic!” he went for a hug, and was held tightly “What are you doing here?”

“There are never enough wands in la guerre” he gave him a disarming smile, and Sirius grinned back “And seems like there isn’t enough beauty when it comes to you. I mean, you were superbe when I met you, but now?”

Sirius felt himself blush and had to look away, “Look who’s talking”

Frederic laughed, and Sirius joined him.

“Merlin, woah” Sirius waved his hands to focus, and Fred laughed harder “What brings you to the Headquarters? Maybe I can help you”

“Le Miror du Riséd” he said between laughs “sounds familiar?”

“Yes, it does” Sirius nodded, laughing along “It’s in a locked room, be here in a minute”

“I’m coming with you – if that’s-”

“Yeah, sure” Sirius tilted his head and lead the way, hearing Fred’s heavy steps following him.  
He charmed the door open and they both got in the small room. Sirius grabbed the cloth and uncovered the dusty mirror, stepping away to look at it – he hadn’t had the chance, yet.

He expects to see Regulus, who turned up dead in a far-flung shore four days ago, maybe when they’re younger and thought they were going to live forever, maybe older versions of themselves who survived this war and made amends. What he sees instead is Remus, who was probably very much alive even though two weeks of radio silence made room for doubts, an arm slung around his shoulders and pecking his cheek, and suddenly he feels really fucking ridiculous, and the worst brother in the entire world.

“Tu vois quelqu’un?”

“Huh?”

“Excuse-moi” Fred smiled “Are you, you know, seeing anyone?”

“In the mirror? I-” Sirius asked, then stopped in his tracks “Oh, no. I’m not”

Fred looked him up and down and exhaled a breathy laugh. Sirius was studying way too much magic to believe in coincidences, so if the universe sent Frederic Bellerose his way he might just as well take it, with both hands.

“Je ne veus pas être trop direct” he stepped closer, gently touching Sirius’ forearm “I ought to bring the mirror to a resistance center in Romania, but I can leave it to tomorrow’s morning”

“Romania” Sirius echoed, stepping closer and running his hand up Fred’s chest.

“Oui, Romania” Fred slid his arm across Sirius’ waist “And I do believe I owe you-”

Sirius shut him up and closed the distance with a kiss. Fred’s hands traveled down to his ass, the back of his thigs and his ass again, grinding their hips together.

“I’d buy you dinner” Fred said against his mouth, making his way to his jaw “Croyez-moi, if I was here for longer than one night, I would do this properly-”

“Let’s go-” Sirius laughed “let’s go back to my place, here, let me apparate us”

He felt Fred nodding in agreement, grinning as he held Sirius’ hand, and they quickly stumbled into his living room.

“Padfoot?” he heard James, and looked up to find him and Remus, face pale and bruised and thin, drinking tea on the couch.

“Where have you been?” Sirius blurted out instinctively, dropping Fred’s hand. Had he had a few more seconds to analyze the situation, he would probably have laughed at the sheer irony of his luck, or apparated back to the dusty room in the Headquarters.

“Dumbledore sent me on a mission” Remus said as he looked away, his voice hoarse and tired, slightly disappointed. Sirius wanted to throw himself on the couch and hold him.

“He wants to talk to-” James intervened

“Oh, never mind” Remus clutched his cup of tea, stealing a glance at Fred and looking down again.

“I can wait” Fred announced, all eyes falling on him. He smiled tenderly at Sirius.

Sirius looked back at Remus, trying to read something on his face, something that could hint on what did he want to tell him – was Sirius close to getting what he wanted, what he had always wanted? Or was Sirius just projecting and fantasizing, as he usually did?

“There’s no need” he said, looking at them, and then he propped himself up and extended his hand “I’m Remus, by the way”

Fred smiled, crossing the space between them and shaking Remus’ hand “Frederic, enchanté”

Sirius could have done it himself, demanded that they talked, taken a chance. But he already taken too many, and he was used to not getting that he wanted, even if it was what he had always wanted.

“Come on” he tugged Fred’s sleeve after he shook James hand, pulling him out of the room and kissing him as soon as they were out of sight, bumping into the hallway shelf on their way to Sirius’ room.

He got his hands under Fred’s jumper as he closed the door behind him, undressing him and eagerly leaving trails of kisses, which made him laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Sirius asked, and he laughed even harder as he attempted to take off Sirius’ shirt while he kissed his collarbone.

“You” he answered, voice low, and started to trace Sirius’ tattoos. He tensed up, and Fred stepped away, eyebrows frowned “Are you alright? Worried about your friend?”

Sirius shook his head, and went for a kiss again, but Fred held him steady by his hips, “I can wait while you sort things out. Or come back another time”

What would it look like, Sirius thought, asking a drop-dead gorgeous guy with whom he was about to have sex to leave, so he could _sort things out_ with Remus Lupin?

“I’m not worried. I want you” Sirius said, nodding, and doing short work of Fred’s belt, the _clink clink clink_ of it loud enough to be heard from the living room.

“D’accord, d’accord” Fred laughed, sliding his hand inside Sirius’ trousers and saying against his ear “Je te veux à quatre pattes”

Sirius doesn’t usually follow orders, but they’re not usually whispered by the generic male-interested fantasy who happens to be holding his erection, so he just nods, his throat dry, and undresses himself, getting on all fours and proceeding to be as loud as he can, making sure the headboard hit the wall every so often.

When he woke up, Sirius was alone and sore, which was a little disappointing, but the sex had been too good for him to be in a mood about it. He went to the bathroom, then to the living room, to put Patti Smith’s _Wave_ on.

_All of the power that burns in the flame ignites the light in a single name_  
_Frederick! Name of care, fast asleep in a room somewhere_  
_Guardian angels line a bed, shed their light on my sleepy head_

He sang and danced on his own while he had a cigarette, and then the thought of bacon and eggs almost aroused him. He made his way to the kitchen, spinning around himself.

On the kitchen counter and on the floor, there was pieces of glass, and milk spilled. Sirius let out a desperate, kind of angry laugh.

The nerve Remus Lupin, the only person who still drank glasses of white milk at the grown age of nineteen, had to have to show up at his place unannounced, after two weeks without having bothering with sending a simple letter, act politely dull, and then throw a fit by himself, on Sirius’ kitchen, after four years of dismissal and fucking other guys.

And broken tableware, how old were they? Shit, _what was that_? A fuck-you, a goodbye, a prank, a war declaration, the closest he would ever get to a love one?

The lock clicked and, for a second, Sirius hoped – it would all be forgiven, what was his to forgive, at least. Then, Frederic’s voice.

“Sirius? Took your keys, got us some petit déjeuner”

The same old disappointment, sour at the back of his throat, and a new, surprising relief under his tongue. Holding on to it, he cast a cleaning spell, and nodded to himself.

“Hey” he said, smiling, and pulling him in for a kiss by the collar of his jumper “thank you, but that’s not what I’m hungry for”

Fred laughed – he had such a beautiful laugh – and let himself be pulled into the wooden floor, _Dancing Barefoot_ spinning while they went for round two.


	12. PINK FLOWER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was so fun to write!! only one left, tell me what you're thinking so far :)

“Salut” Frederic smiles, looking directly at Sirius, who nods and smiles back. Remus straightens up, and Lily shots James an inquisitive look.

“Thank you for waiting” Dumbledore says, as if they had any other choice “This is Andreea and Frederic, from the Romanian investigation center. Would you all sit? I’ll make some tea”

Their guest are the first ones to do so – Alice sits next to Andreea on the round table, then Peter, and Lily and James sit next to Frederic. Remus seems keen on finishing his cigarette and Sirius does so too, so they’re the last ones to sit down, and have to squeeze in to fit. Remus keeps his knee pressing against Sirius’.

“Are you alright? Que s’est-il passé?” Frederic asks, slowly, eyes trained on Sirius.

“I’m okay, really. I was not in actual danger” he gives him a small smile, that Frederic mirrors, and glances to check that Dumbledore is listening, catching Remus’ slight frown in his peripheral.

He proceeds to tell them what happened, with more details and less sass, and by the time he’s finished everyone has a cup of tea in their hands.

“So, basically, Voldemort doesn’t want you dead” Andreea says anything for the first time, her voice deep and raspy, with an accent he can’t quite pinpoint.

“Or doesn’t want whoever’s after him to have him” Fred chimes in “the woman was not aiming to kill, was she?” Sirius shakes his head “Can I see the letter?”

“I don’t-”

“I do” Peter interrupts Sirius “let me go get it”

Frederic’s eyes travel from Sirius to Peter, to who he nods and smiles, and then back to Sirius.

“Who was she working for, do you have any idea? Your family?”

“Doubt it” Sirius cracks his knuckles “I went to Regulus’s funeral, if they wanted me, they could have taken that chance”

Frederic sighs, “J’ai entendu dire. Mês condonléances, je suis désolé”

Sirius shrugs sadly, “Merci”

Peter comes back with the letter and hands it to Frederic. Andreea reads it over his shoulder.

“Don’t _ever_ do that again” he says and smiles sweetly “We’d never ask to speak with you, spécifiquement. We’d ask for anyone in the order, and probably suggest meeting here, in the headquarters”

Sirius, who knew that Remus was probably right, feels a little embarrassed now that this is being said with such certainty and tenderness, over a table, “I thought that, given that I was involved in the flower seeds’ research-”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Andreea cuts him in, waving vaguely with her hands “Whoever wrote this letter, knew, or was told, that you gave Fred the mirror, and you brewed the seeds with Amortentia”

“Inside information” Alice half asks, half says.

“Or he could’ve been followed” Remus offers, his voice tense.

“Guys” Sirius holds his hand out, asking for them to go slower “those are transactions, objects moving. Almost anyone could trace the mirror from London to Romania, and the seeds from wherever the fuck they came from to my workplace. Doesn’t need to be a member of the Order, let alone follow my every move since fucking April”

He doesn’t look at Remus, but Alice seems convinced. Then, Lily asks,

“Those seeds – what’s the matter with them?”

“Those seeds, dear Lily” Dumbledore finally intervenes, and Sirius wishes he hadn’t “have magical properties that would make one believe their biggest wishes and desires came true. You see, with the conviction that you have everything you want, and it was all made possible-”

“Pardon” Fred interrupts him “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but since I’ve been conducting this research for almost a year now, I think I should answer her question, non?”

Dumbledore’s eyes widen, but he gestures him to go ahead. Sirius has to bite back a smile, and Remus retreats his leg, so it doesn’t touch Sirius anymore, sitting on his hand.

“This is about Imperius” he says gravely, and catches everyone’s attention “we’re all training to resist the curse and, most importantly, to recognized someone who was imperiused, right?”

Everyone nods.

“Then, the curse loses its significance. And the next best way to manipulate someone is not quite promising them what they want, but giving it to them and threatening to take it away if they don’t follow your commands”

“The woman, at the store” Sirius says, and Fred immediately nods “she said she wasn’t given money”

“Oui, that’s a possibility. And you could’ve been targeted precisely because of the seeds, since when you brew them in Amortentia- eh bien, I’m getting ahead of myself. So, you have to design this person’s ultimate wet dream, and make them believe it, and with this magic, that we’ve been calling fleur rose, you can. That’s how le Miror du Riséd works. That’s how love potions work. Sirius’ seeds work”

Fred says Sirius in a funny way, and Remus mocks it under his breath. Fred notices.

“See, Sirius thought he ought to just throw the seeds into every potion they had in stock” James laughs at that, and Fred throws him an appreciative smile “and the smell of the Amortentia was just, tu sais, _exaspérant_. And his colleague-”

“Hayley” Sirius offers

“Oui, Hayley, broke the seeds into very little pieces and we think he got it, a material substance to match the energy, like a pink powder. Which is, enfin, monumental”

Frederic smiles, and everyone smiles back, that’s just how contagious that is. Everyone, but Remus,

“I have a question. You see, the mirror, the flowers, they’re static, so they’re effects are circumstantial, temporary. You can literally move away from it, and regain your clarity”

“You’ve read Dillon Kramer, then?”

Sirius looks at Remus to see him nod, eyes a little defiant, hands no longer under his legs.

“You ought to pick better authors, then” Fred says in a beat, a little mean, and it’s like the air is sucked out of the room, because you just _don’t_ say that to Remus Lupin, and Sirius can’t help but fucking snicker “Kramer’s sources are just the little voices in his head, actual research proves the opposite”

Sirius notices how James and Lily share a look.

“Try to read, I don’t know, Mathys, Hewitt, Boudman, who studied people who touched the flowers, or saw something in the mirror that they’d never seen before, or drank incredibly strong love potions. There’s solid evidence that they become totally addicted, changes the way they perceive reality, the way they cast spells, the way they interpret what they hear. They basically build their fantasies themselves and are bound to life to whoever started it. The huge majority ends up dying for them. There are statistics, does Kramer knows what those are?”

When Sirius looks at Remus, he is glaring at Frederic, jaw tense, nose twisted, hands on a fist. Then, in the most stuck-up and constipated way possible,

“I stand corrected, then”

James snorts so loud, no one hears Sirius snicker. Frederic’s shoulders relax and then he looks at Sirius again, smiling.

“I’d like to go over something with you, if that’s alright”

Sirius nods, but Lily chimes in.

“Could you do that tomorrow, if it’s not urgent? It’s our friend’s birthday in like, half an hour, her girlfriend is throwing her a surprise party”

Frederic looks unfazed, sympathetic even, and opens his mouth to probably say that it is alright, but Sirius, who wants anything but a party right now, is quicker.

“Go ahead, I will meet you there”

Sirius can’t really appreciate how huge Fred’s grin is because Lily, James and Remus snap their heads in his direction at the same time.

After three heartbeats of silence, Remus asks, in a low-volume angry whisper “Are you _really_ going to spend your night here _with him_?”

“I’m not _spending the night_ Moony, it’s only an hour or so” he tries to reply in the same tone, but it’s definitely more perceptible.

“Oui” Fred says as he makes his way to them, all long, graceful strides, “Remy, isn’t it?”

“Close enough”

“Won’t be long. We’re a good team, we can get a lot done in an hour or so” Fred says as he places his hand in Sirius’ shoulder, and Remus just gets up and heads to the door.

“You’ll miss the midnight!” Lily tries to argue as Remus opens the door hastily.

“Fuck’s sake Lily, it’s not like she will be looking for me to snog”

With that, she leaves as well, followed by James, then Alice, then Peter, and, finally, Dumbledore, who takes his time to shot them a funny look.

“Sorry if I was a bit out of line” Fred says sheepishly the moment they’re alone “but you should’ve seen the way he was looking at me”

Sirius shrugs, “No harm done”

“Alors” Fred carries it, placing his head on his hand “what’s going on between you two?”

A sigh, and then “It’s complicated”

“Allez, allez, don’t do that”

Sirius shrugs helplessly “I really don’t know, man”

Fred shrugs back, a light-hearted pout, and turns to reach for his case, taking out a world map and spreading it on the table. A spot between Kenya and Tanzania is marked with a red cross.

“Alors, Imperius is a spell, right? Infinite. Traces of dark magic present in every wand that it’s made. D’autre part, we’ve gathered that fleur rose is a powder. We’ve got what, a couple grams?”

“You’re after the source”

Fred smiles, “Oui. I knew you’d get there vite. That, and I don’t fucking trust that Dumbledore character”

Sirius laughs at that – his friends are tired of Dumbledore, but never distrustful, which is probably wise at this point – and points at the spot crossed in the map “That’s where the mirror was created?”

“We think so, oui. This summer, we’ve sent a team of people there to investigate. Didn’t found anything valuable”

“Seeds are probably a better lead”

“I hope so, oui”

They look into everyone whose name is in Sirius’ repertoire – they’re all pretty average and unremarkable people, and most of them already passed away, so they hit dead end after dead end.

“Ann Pacth – there’s no obituary, and there’s an address. I’m going to wirte” Sirius informs after a while, and Fred nods, focused on his own files.

They end up getting somewhere: George Chichester-Clark, a journalist from Daily Prophet, did an article on Inverness, Scotland, 1956, three years before being admitted in St. Mungo’s, seven years before dying. Natalie Daalwijk, a marine biologist from Netherlands, went on vacation to Inverness, four years before being murdered.

Fred looks satisfied as he circles the little town in his map, “C’est toujours ça de pris! Merci, Sirius, thank you”

Sirius can’t quite manage a smile, and says quietly, placing his finger on a spot in the shore, close to Inverness, “This is where they found Reg”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Fred asks, just as quietly.

Sirius rolls his neck, and sighs softly “I wish I had something to say substantial to say, you know? I used to think he was a little prick, but not _evil_. And I wish I could stand by that, but the truth is, I didn’t know him, not really, not anymore. I hadn’t spoken to him in years. And maybe I should’ve”

“You know it is not on you”

“Yeah” Sirius shrugs helplessly “I can’t help but feel that it is, though”

Fred reaches for Sirius’ hand on the map and squeezes it gently.

“Oui, I know how it feels. I’ve got family on the other side, too. Not a brother – c’est épouvantable. But cousins I’ve never thought I’d drift apart from, and all that”

Sirius can’t explain why Fred’s misery makes him feel so comforted, but it does. He squeezes his hand back and feels a little less forsaken.

“It’s getting quite late, oui? We’ve been here for over two hours, going on three. Don’t you have a birthday party to go?

Sirius nods and stretches his back, “Do you want to come with?”

Fred laughs, “Your friend would definitely murder me, and then you, and we can’t risk that when we’re the only ones who know about Inverness. About that – can you satisfy my curiosity, now? I’ll toss and turn in my sleep trying to figure out what you’re up to”

Sirius laughs too and thinks that he might as well just talk about it, since he wants to, and his best friends are either married at 19 or out of their fucking mind.

“So” he starts, taking a deep breath “I’ve liked him for a while now, and he’d always sort of, you know, turned me down. Turns out that he kind of liked me too, but was unsure about everything, until two weeks ago, apparently. Now he says he wants to be together”

Fred waits for him to keep going, but Sirius doesn’t know how to, and then “That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it”

“I’m struggling to see why that would be a problem”

“Well, it isn’t” Sirius says, fidgeting with his fingers “Look, I’ve wanted it for so long that I’ve never thought about it realistically, and now I can’t help but wonder what if he’s settling, what if I turn out to be an awful boyfriend, what if he loses interest”

He places the heels of his hand over his eyes and sighs shakily. Fred takes a while to reply.

“I highly doubt he’s _settling_. He’s young, good looking, plenty of other options, non? And you’re, well, you. One doesn’t settle for Sirius Black”

The corner of Sirius’ mouth turns upwards, and he breathes easier, so compliment-driven it’s almost sad.

“He’s the one who breaks up with you in all those scenarios, non?” Sirius nods, not looking at him, and Fred lets out a chuckle “Well, that’s a little pessimistic. Are you certain that you’re going to want to be with him, let’s say, eight months from now?”

“Yes”

Fred laughs again, “You’re a doll. No, you don’t”

“I do, I’ve _always_ wanted to be with him” Sirius insists, still not looking at him.

“Eh bien, dreaming is easier, you date an idea. But he can turn out to be an awful boyfriend, _you_ can lose interest”

“Not bloody likely”

“Almost as likely as the other way around, non?" Fred chuckles "You never know, when you start dating someone. You just- prende le risque, jump into it, give it a try”

Sirius whimpers softly, and Fred removes his hands from his face.

“Regarde-moi” he says, tracing an invisible straight line with his finger “this is your dreams, d’accord, the life you fantasize about”

Sirius nods, crossing his arms.

“And this is your reality” Fred says, tracing a line beneath the previous one, with ups and downs, and then his finger goes up and meets the first line “Sometimes it happens, réalité et rêve se réunissent. Of course it is overwhelming, and scary, but it’s quite beautiful, non? Alors ça vaut le coup”

“Yeah” Sirius smiles softly, because that is a really nice way to put it “I don’t know if that’s actually good advice or just what I want to hear”

“It’s good advice, je te promets. Lucky you then, the truth is on your side”

Sirius grins foolishly and Fred ruffles his hair, smiling gently. They tidy everything up, dress up their respective coats on their way out and part ways with a hug and the promise of keeping in touch.

Marlene’s house is only twenty minutes away, so Sirius decides to walk there, smiling still. The truth is on his side. He likes Moony, Moony likes him back. They’re going to give it a try. Feels right, makes sense. He knows that. He has known that for longer than two weeks.

_// I see vividness in places I go_  
_I see dead bodies flying of the ones that cut short_  
_And these dreams that I'm living only present to crawl_  
_And I love you //_

They were at the Headquarters, Sirius smoking by the window, trying to calm himself down after having lost his cool in front of Dumbledore, who scolded him in a very forbearing and typically patronizing way. It was raining heavily, and Sirius could hardly breathe in the November haze.

“Just me, him, Lily and Marlene” James tried to argue in a more reasonable tone “if we feel that’s something’s off, we’ll Apparate back”

“I’d advise you not to, James” Dumbledore insisted, wiping his forehead “When a crew doesn’t get back from a mission for longer than what was anticipated, we shall not send somewhere else there. That’s procedure.”

“Whose procedure?!” Sirius asked from the window and James looked at him, exasperated and silently asking him to shut up “This is not a fucking dictatorship, Professor, we have the coordinates stamped in the black board and we _will_ get Lupin, Fenwick and Meadowes even if you don’t-”

“Sirius” he said sternly “we have every reason to believe that this could be an ambush. It would be appreciated if you scanned the place in two days, but not tonight-”

“Professor” Lily interrupted him. Oh, her guts “They could all be in danger, and in need of back-up”

“Every mission is dangerous, dear Lily, and you can understand that if we come running every time someone faces the eminence of death, we’ll have lost the war before summer”

Something about Dumbledore alluding to 19-year-old Remus _dying_ without so much as baiting an eye jostled Sirius out of the window frame.

“Alright, I’m going” he announced, everyone’s eyes falling on him.

“Sorry, professor” Marlene tilted her head, grabbing Sirius’ arm and apparating the two of them to the old barn where Dorcas, Remus and Benjy were sent before sunset.

Everything was dark, but Sirius sensed magic as soon as he hit the floor. James and Lily apparated right after them.

“Let’s go outside” Marlene instructed, and they all followed her to the empty cornfield. At the end of their field of vision, they could see flashes of light, mostly green, flying in every direction. They all started to run, the smell of burning increasing.

“Dorcas!” Marlene cried out when body silhouettes started to become intelligible.

“Marls!” a shout, and Marlene ran faster, catching Sirius.

“ _Confringo!_ ” Sirius aimed at a Death Eater, who defended himself, and then another, who was hit. They were about fifteen. He looked right, Benjy’s body on the floor, the smell of death.

“ _Densaugeo!_ ” a Death Eater aimed at him, and Sirius rebounded it, shouting “ _Petrificus Totalus!_ ”

“ _Incarcerous!_ ”

 _“Tarantallegra!_ ”

He looked behind his back, Dorcas aiming a “ _Crucio!_ ” at a Death Eater, Marlene by her side.

“ _Stupefy!_ ” Sirius shot, missing.

“ _Oppognuo!_ ” he aimed at another one of them, looking left and seeing Remus fighting off two Death Eaters.

“ _Locomotor Mortis! Bombarda!_ ” he heard, as he got closer. Remus hit one, missed another.

“ _Relashio!_ ” he attempted, failing.

“ _Avada Kedavra!_ ” the Death Eater aimed at Remus.

“ _Protego!_ ” Sirius went “ _Avada Kedavra!_ ”

Then, the smell of blood, all around him, like Occlumency, coming in through his nose, his ears, his eyes, drowning him out. His body rigid, all the sound around him muffled. All he could see was a green, neon light. His knees hit the floor. He hid his face with his hands, and they smelled like blood.

His name in the distance, then closer, closer.

“Padfoot!” hands pushing his own, holding his face instead, gently slapping “come on, it’s James. Sirius, stay with me”

“We need to apparate like now, Potter” Dorcas’ voice, angry.

“He will get fucking splinched if someone apparates with him” Remus’ voice, nervous.

Sirius head fell back, his eyes turning, seeing red.

“Sirius! Come on, man” a harder slap, James’ courtesy.

“They’re bringing reinforcements” Dorcas, again “Rather splinched than dead. We’re six”

“It all smells like blood” Sirius breathed out, his eyes unfocused.

“It’s alright mate, you’re good. They’re gone” James said urgently, feeling his rocketing pulse “You’re very much alive, but I need you to get your shit together, so we can apparate”

Sirius tried to take a deep breath, but all he inhaled was blood, and started gasping instead.

“Sirius, Padfoot, come on” James put a hand on his shoulders.

“I killed-” he sobbed.

“Don’t, Pads, don’t worry about it now. Focus on something else. Now, tell me, who’s the captain of Kenmare Kestrels?”

Sirius retched and it felt like blood, but he managed to answer “David Rowland”

“Great, and who won the championship two years ago?”

Sirius fell on James shoulder, crying.

“Come on, you know who did” James held his head straight.

“Braga Broomfleet”

“Are you kidding me?” Marlene asked.

“It’s working, alright? Why don’t you do some warding spells to keep us hidden?”

“If Remus-wreck-Lupin manages to do a _Salvio Hexia_!” Dorcas protested, and Remus flinched – he was shit at shielding spells, indeed.

“Moony, take over me?” James asked as Sirius hid his face, gasping still “Just keep him focused on something, the guy is a Quidditch encyclopedia”

Remus crouched next to him, his hands nervously pressing on Sirius’ knees “Padfoot, look at me”

He didn’t, and Remus sighed, “Alright, how many players in a team?”

“Seven” he whispered, winded.

“Yeah, I think so” Remus dig his nails around Sirius’ knees, unbelievably nervous “What’s the name of the british team?”

Sirius sobbed and he hugged his knees, pushing Remus away.

“Come on, tell me”

“They’re like, ten”

“Shit” Remus sighed “Hum, okay, what about me then, what’s my name, my nickname?”

“Moony”

“And my middle name?”

“John”

Between all the red, Sirius could start to recognize Remus’ outline, his hair, his shoulders.

“What’s my mother’s name?”

“Hope”

“My Hogwarts’ house?”

“Gryffindor” the word was so, so red, Sirius only had time to turn his head before he threw up. Remus held his hair and then wiped the sweat off Sirius’ forehead with one hand.

“Sirius, my birthday”

“March, 6th of march”

Remus hand on his neck. The sound was no longer muffled.

“Where will I travel to, when I can?”

“Nepal”

He could now make up Remus’ mouth, his nose, his eyes. Then he looked around, everything still deep red, and sobbed again.

“No, no, keep looking at me” Remus held his face between his hands, dirty nails on his cheekbones “What’s my favourite kind of weather?”

Sirius’ nails felt dirty as well, heavy, and bloody, like he had ripped a rabbit apart with his bare hands.

“Padfoot, come on, tell me what it is like and think about how it feels”

“Sunny, and chilly” Sirius said, feeling a slight breeze.

“What’s my favourite book?”

“I don’t know the name” Sirius sighed “but it’s about a road trip. Has a baby-blue hard cover”

“Yeah, that’s the one” Remus smiled, and Sirius’ vision cleared “What’s my favourite song?”

“Born Enchanter”

“And my favourite movie?”

“The Human Condition”

Remus was breathing easier, which also helped Sirius’ calm down. He wiped the tears off his face, and quietly said “Remember when we were watching it and you were so immersed, that when James apparated you had a jump scare and spilled our tea all over?”

“Yeah” Sirius said, no longer gasping. Everything still smelled like blood, but he could see Remus clearly, and he looked around to see his friends surrounding the shield, no sight of Death Eaters “You take your tea with two sugar cubes and a spoon of honey, couldn’t be more diabetic”

Remus drew near, a distance so close it can only evolve into no distance at all “Do you still”

Sirius could feel it again, red and overwhelming, but with a different smell.

“I’ve just- do you”

Remus went for a kiss on the cheek instead.

“James” he called out, his hands still cupping Sirius’ face “We’re ready to apparate”


	13. ACID TRIP

When he rings the doorbell, the birthday girl herself answers it.

“Happy birthday!” he screams and wraps his arms around Dorcas’ waist, lifting her and spinning her around.

She laughs, euphoric, “Sirius, I thought you were already here! Haven’t we talked to each other tonight?”

He playfully makes a shocked expression, clutching his chest with his hand, the other one still around her waist “I can’t believe what I’m hearing, Meadowes. Normally I’d be so offended, you’re lucky it’s your birthday”

She laughs harder, throwing her head back, curls bouncing, and when she regains her balance “I miss when birthdays were more than an excuse to get shitfaced drunk”

“Were they ever? I think it’s always been this way”

She shrugs drunkenly, hugs him tighter “I hope it’s not my last”

“Oh, baby” he holds the back of her neck “I hope so, too”

“Here, let me treat you to a drink”

He follows Dorcas to the kitchen, where she engages in conversation with a couple of other Hufflepuffs as she pours him a drink, and nicely greets everyone individually before excusing himself and making his way to the living room.

The room is bursting with people, but he spots Remus immediately, rolling a cigarette on the couch with his back to the door, James next to him, Peter next to James, talking enthusiastically. It’s him who sees Sirius first, face lighting up, and James and Remus follow his gaze.

Remus is pissed as all hell, fringe plastered to his forehead, pupils huge, cheeks pink, mouth red, the sleeves of his shirt pushed back, its top buttons open, collarbones glistening with sweat. Sirius’ heart misses a beat, and then beats faster.

“Did you have a fun fucking time, Sirius?” he practically shouts, and James and Peter erupt in a fit of laughter.

“I’ve been following this shit from the wrong point of view” James says, out of breath, as Sirius towers over them “Jealous Remus is a fucking delight”

Sirius smirks and leans down, pressing a kiss to Remus’ hot cheek; he can feel him inhale sharply, and kisses it again.

“The asshole just kissed my cheek!” he announces when Sirius straightens up and sips his drink, making him spit it right back. James is laughing so hard he’s clutching his sides. “You saw this shit? Someone better fucking tell Lily Evans!”

“Cheeky ciggie you have there” Sirius says to Remus, amusement in his tone, his nervousness going unnoticed, or so he hopes “Let’s smoke it outside, shall we?”

“Can’t, have some reading to do, you see”

Peter snorts and James throws himself on his lap, struggling to get air in the midst of his laughter.

“It’s your lucky day, I heard Dorcas has a library in her balcony”

Remus shots him an exaggerated mistrustful look as he gets up from the couch, and it reminds Sirius so much of his sixteen-year-old self it makes all his insides twist, and the palms of his hands tingle. He takes deep breaths as he gently shoves his way through, and Remus’ fingers find his wrist, and wrap around it.

He’s drunk, and probably upset, and the moon is waxing, but his grip is oh-so-gentle, barely there. Sirius doesn’t know when he makes things better and when he makes them worse, but he vows to pay further attention from now on, he will be more careful.

Dorcas’ apartment is on a ground floor, so her living room leads to a little terrace where she plants strawberries and cherry tomato. It’s empty, probably because it’s December and fucking freezing outside. Sirius sits down on the third, and last, short step, and Remus clumsily sits next to him, legs stretched in front of him.

Sirius watches closely as he lights up his cigarette wordlessly, lips tight around it, cheeks hollowing, the scar on the edge of his nose illuminated by the fire burning at the tip of the cigarette, eyes closing at the feeling of nicotine. He leans in, and Remus leans in too, so their faces are mere inches apart. After two drags, Remus passes him the cigarette, not brushing their fingers, not looking at him.

“You’re a dream come true, Moony” he says softly, quietly, and Remus closes his eyes. Sirius inhales the smoke as he tries to find words that aren’t Fred’s, but his heart is at his throat, and he feels light-headed with the proximity, and he has to say something true “it scares the shit out of me. But all worthy things do, right?”

Remus drops his head on Sirius’ shoulder, and Sirius shifts, turning slightly on his side, so Remus can lay against his chest. With one hand, he supports their weight, and with the other, he places the cigarette against Remus’ mouth, his fingers in a V, pressed against Remus’ lips, like Remus had done earlier that day. Like he had probably done with his past lovers, but it doesn’t matter now, when Sirius is the one he’s doing it with.

“When I said I had to think about it” Sirius basically whispers, his mouth just above Remus’ ear “I was just overwhelmed, insecure. Not unsure, no. What I want out of this is no question. Or, if it is, I’ve known the answer for years”

Remus exhales smoke, and Sirius presses his lips against his temple. He does so for a while, feeling himself coming down, feeling grounded, anchored in Remus’ warm weight against his body, breathing in and out as Remus does. He’s here. It’s real.

“This means I get to sleep on your bed from now on?”

Sirius lets out a laugh, “Should’ve known this was all a matter of interior design”

“The red and gold wall on your living room fucking kills me. Forsaken house pride, you’re literally twenty, love”

“ _Love_ ” Sirius parrots, smiling as he exhales.

“What? You are”

The cigarette is smoked promptly, and they stay still for a few moments afterwards, Sirius’ free hand on Remus’ hip. Then, Remus turns and kisses Sirius, drunkenly, passionately, thoroughly, all his weight thrown into it.

Impossibly, it starts to pour, the sound all-encompassing, muffling the party behind them. Sirius wraps his arm around Remus’ waist and pulls him closer, not breaking the kiss until he tastes raindrops on his lips.

“Come on, let’s go inside” he says against Remus’ mouth.

“No” Remus kisses him again, running his hand through his soaked hair and grabbing the back of his neck “Are you aware of how fucking romantic this is? We’re in love and we can’t hear shit, and it’s 3 a.m. and we’re kissing in the rain”

Sirius laughs loudly, euphorically, shivering “Yeah, you’re right, you’re always right, how come are you so smart-”

“Oh, shut it. When we get home, I’ll warm you up, alright?”

Sirius smiles and Remus mirrors, his huge, crooked grin, all teeth and crinkled eyes, the one Sirius loves the most and dreamt of kissing millions of times before, and now he can, so he does, capturing it in his mouth and biting down, holding it there, where it’s real and his.

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss. They’ll keep kissing, and that thought alone makes Sirius smile foolishly into it.

_// I feel like we're on acid when we kiss_  
_all those colours on your lips,_  
_got me sprung and got me //_

“Hey” a soft, sweet voice, but Sirius recognized who it was by the gentle grip on his shoulder, lingering.

He straightened his posture, cracking his lower back and his neck, rubbing his eyes and looking at the clock: 6:27. He must have slept for forty-five minutes, an hour at most, which was a record, since the cornfield mission – not even sleeping spells were working, nightmares woke him up twenty minutes in. He couldn’t eat as well – it all tasted like blood, even cornflakes – nor look at himself in the mirror, which were his two favourite activities.

He had tried washing it off – 7 consecutive showers – and turning into Padfoot, but there was no way to get rid of the smell, it was as if it had pervaded every single thing. Additionally, as a dog, all his rational thoughts (he was a Death Eater, it was him or Remus) seemed to be replaced by the simple, instinctive and insurmountable fact that he had killed someone.

“Hello, Moony” Sirius said hoarsely, getting up and stretching,

He also couldn’t stand to be in the flat: James checking up on him every half an hour, every cup of tea or pack of cigarettes accompanied by awful attempts at making easy, soulful conversation, Peter insisting on knowing what was it like, how did it feel, Lily offering unrequited consolation (“We’ll all be murderers someday, you know”) every time she was able to corner him in the bathroom, Remus shooting him longing glances from a distance, waiting.

So, he took a little vacation to the Headquarters, drowning himself in research regarding location magic – could they come up with a Death Eater-tracing charm? It had been Sirius’ obsession for the last four-five days, uninterrupted by sleep (only fifteen-minute-long exhaustion naps).

“Have you been sleeping, like, at all?” Remus asked, vaguely waving in the direction of the multiple dirty cups of coffee “Don’t think I’ve even seen you with dark circles”

“Are you implying that, in this fine morning, I’m not as dazzling-”

“Come on, let me make you breakfast” Remus interrupted him, tilting his head in the kitchen’s direction and turning around.

Sirius followed and sat on the table, resting his head on his arms as Remus cooked, and only picking at his bacon and eggs afterwards, purposely not meeting his friends’ eyes. He wasn’t thrown off by his presence, though.

“How come” Remus said, mouth full “you’re not sleeping? I thought you were, like, on a maniac episode, but you’re exhausted”

Sirius shrugged, sitting on the kitchen counter and reaching for the ashtray, and said quietly “I don’t think I can calm down enough”

He glanced at Remus, who was biting the inside of his cheek, as he did when he was evaluating all the pros and cons of an idea that crossed his mind.

“Like, when I consciously close my eyes, it gets worse, the smell, it is” Sirius kept going, and it seemed to do it for Remus, who got up and crossed the distance between them in two steps, wrapping his arms around Sirius’ waist.

Sirius put the ashtray aside and hugged him back, tentatively putting his arms around the scarred neck, and then buried his face in Remus’ neck, and sighed with relief. It smelled like Amortentia in fifth year – honey, hints of chocolate and lavender, wet grass and new schoolbooks, a trace of orange – but better, with the smell of the leather of his own couch and tobacco and his own peachy conditioner as well. He clung to him like a drowning man.

“Smells fine” he muttered, and Remus rubbed his back.

“Think you could sleep like this?”

“Hm-hm”

Remus tightened his grip and gently pulled Sirius, who gawkily wrapped his legs around his hips, and let his grown, heavy twenty-year-old self be carried to the couch. Remus managed to not bump into nothing on their way, laying Sirius down on his side and using his wand to cast the curtains shut.

He laid down next to him, on his side too, no space between their breathing bodies, his hand on Sirius’ lower back, beneath the black jumper. Sirius let his hand wander to Remus cheek – he could blame it on the heat of the moment afterwards, but he hoped he wouldn’t need to – and fell asleep in under one minute, smelling eggs and bacon and honey.

Sirius woke up with a kiss on his neck, so soft it felt like a dream. Then, a kiss on his cheekbone, and another one in between his eyebrows, equally gentle. He opened his eyes, blinking, slowly focusing on Remus Lupin, propped up on his right elbow, slightly on top of him, the curtains charmed open again, everything a little too bright.

Finally, a kiss on his lips, slow and mellow. Remus met his eyes and smiled, the tip of his tongue between his teeth, his eyes tender. Then, he smoothly sank down, his head on Sirius’ chest, his thundering heartbeat drumming against his ears, nothing to smother the sound.

His fingers traced shapes on Sirius’ Quidditch sweatshirt, long, calloused, lovely fingers pressing against his ribs, rewiring his veins. Remus’ long eyelashes casted shadows down his cheeks, his freckles softer than what they were in August, his lips parted, silently mumbling something.

Sirius’ heart beating frantically, for him, under him.

“Remus” he said, and Remus looked up, adjusting, closer.

Sirius kissed Remus – open-mouthed, desperate with desire, one hand on his cheek and the other tugging at his hair, trying to get closer than closest, Remus’ lips honey and tangerine orange on his own, minty-green between his teeth, cherry-red and raspberry-pink and blueberry-blue against his jaw, lavender-purple around his tongue, his left hand free all over him, up and down his sides, in his abdomen, beneath the shirt, feeling him up through his trousers.

And then, someone clearing his throat and a solemn “Hello, boys”

Sirius could get used to Unforgivables, he thought as Remus slid off him – not hurried nor embarrassed, no, a cheeky grin creeping up his rosy cheeks instead.

“Sorry, professor” he said to Dumbledore, gracefully falling on the floor, his hand still on Sirius’ arm. Then he turned to look at him and smiled, fondly and foolishly, and Sirius felt his heart beating, and beating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we're done!! thank you for joining me on this journey :)


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